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Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of a mindfulness practice. Every week, you’ll receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle prompts designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations, empowering you to feel restored and refreshed at any moment of the day.
Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of a mindfulness practice. Every week, you’ll receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle prompts designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations, empowering you to feel restored and refreshed at any moment of the day.
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CLARITY
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Arianna Huffington
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A home that had been waiting for me forever
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Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
LUCY KALANITHI
About Meditative Story
PETER SAGAL
Travel to Southeast Asia with writer Pico Iyer as he reveals what happens when we allow ourselves to be pulled forward into the unknown, when we wander and let ourselves experience the magic of the scenes unfolding around us.
Perspective
To visualize... and then make it so
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Arianna Huffington
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change
Perspective
awareness
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Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor takes us back to his very first time on stage — and introduces us to someone who gave him the push he needed to be true to himself. Please note that this episode includes language about self harm.
Wonder
Wonder
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE
CLARITY
JANE MCGONIGAL
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Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
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Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
ACCEPTANCE
PETER SAGAL
I let go of my plan — and found myself
Acceptance
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ACCEPTANCE
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Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of a mindfulness practice. Every week, you’ll receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle prompts designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations, empowering you to feel restored and refreshed at any moment of the day.
How to find—and feed—your passion
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Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
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Lucy Kalanithi shares a story about how much delight and wisdom there can be — even when we’re surrounded by tragic loss — when we see life and death through the eyes of a child.
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Fighting my fears – and winning in spite of losing
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Arianna Huffington
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Openness
While filming one day in the Congo rainforest, legendary photojournalist John Moore pursued the vision of a perfect photograph – a vision that literally brought him to his knees. He shares the magic that can occur when you let go of the desire to control the outcome.
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DAN HARRIS
My funny, feisty, thoughtful brave girl
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PERSPECTIVE
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Restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him: a family trip to Europe and a simple plate of pasta. That memorable meal sparked a lifetime practice of discovery that continues to feed his creativity and his soul.
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JOSH RADNOR
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TRANSFORMATION
Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
DISCOVERY
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Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
PRESENCE
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PRESENCE
NPR host Peter Sagal shares the story of a motorcycle trip he took through the middle of America – and how it gave him the space he needed to navigate.
PRESENCE
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Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
Connection
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
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Author and journalist Thomas Page McBee takes us into the boxing ring at Madison Square Garden, where he finds answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting – and along the way discovers what happens when you stop trying to win.
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Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
JOSH RADNOR
CONNECTION
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Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
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Finding my own reflection
CREATIVITY
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Author and journalist Thomas Page McBee takes us into the boxing ring at Madison Square Garden, where he finds answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting – and along the way discovers what happens when you stop trying to win.
PRESENCE
JANE MCGONIGAL
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A home that had been waiting for me forever
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Broadcaster Dan Harris shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip.
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Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
PETER SAGAL
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Hitting the open road to find my way home
MICHELLE THALLER
LARRY JACKSON
JOSH RADNOR
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CLARITY
Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of a mindfulness practice. Every week, you’ll receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle prompts designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations, empowering you to feel restored and refreshed at any moment of the day.
Listen
Read more >
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PRESENCE
Openness
ALL EPISODES
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How to find—and feed—your passion
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The perfect photograph I never took
CLARITY
Travel to Southeast Asia with writer Pico Iyer as he reveals what happens when we allow ourselves to be pulled forward into the unknown, when we wander and let ourselves experience the magic of the scenes unfolding around us.
>
Fighting my fears – and winning in spite of losing
connection
About Meditative Story
I let go of my plan — and found myself
Krista Tippett, the host of "On Being", talks about the time she took a break from the intensity of life and just stopped to check in with herself – with deeply unexpected results.
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DANNY MEYER
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PRESENCE
LUCY KALANITHI
Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
PETER SAGAL
CREATIVITY
The perfect photograph I never took
Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
OPENNESS
Restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him: a family trip to Europe and a simple plate of pasta. That memorable meal sparked a lifetime practice of discovery that continues to feed his creativity and his soul.
OPENNESS
INSPIRATION
My funny, feisty, thoughtful brave girl
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Your email
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
LARRY JACKSON
Hitting the open road to find my way home
PRESENCE
>
Connection
Listen
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
DISCOVERY
Lucy Kalanithi shares a story about how much delight and wisdom there can be — even when we’re surrounded by tragic loss — when we see life and death through the eyes of a child.
awareness
Listen
OPENNESS
ACCEPTANCE
Connection
Building a bond with my son
PICO IYER
Krista Tippett, the host of "On Being", talks about the time she took a break from the intensity of life and just stopped to check in with herself – with deeply unexpected results.
MICHELLE THALLER
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MICHELLE THALLER
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KRISTA TIPPETT
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JOSH RADNOR
CREATIVITY
connection
Finding my own reflection
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
Perspective
Building a bond with my son
centeredness
ALL EPISODES
Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
acceptance
acceptance
change
Clarity
Clarity
While filming one day in the Congo rainforest, legendary photojournalist John Moore pursued the vision of a perfect photograph – a vision that literally brought him to his knees. He shares the magic that can occur when you let go of the desire to control the outcome.
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CLARITY
Finding my own reflection
Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
Openness
Listen
PICO IYER
CONNECTION
Life and love and the moment
INSPIRATION
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DANNY MEYER
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Life and love and the moment
To visualize... and then make it so
connection
JOHN MOORE
ATTENTION
To visualize... and then make it so
Hitting the open road to find my way home
TRANSFORMATION
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FOCUS
JANE MCGONIGAL
Finding my own reflection
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PRESENCE
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Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor takes us back to his very first time on stage — and introduces us to someone who gave him the push he needed to be true to himself. Please note that this episode includes language about self harm.
When NPR host Peter Sagal found himself with two free weeks – and in need of a healthy distraction – he decided to jump on his bike for a long solo trip out west. Though he had a destination in mind, what he found was not a way out, but a way into himself.
Hitting the open road to find my way home
ACCEPTANCE
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Clarity
Wonder
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Life and love and the moment
LATEST EPISODES
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE
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NPR host Peter Sagal shares the story of a motorcycle trip he took through the middle of America – and how it gave him the space he needed to navigate.
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Josh Radnor is an actor, filmmaker, and musician. But that's now. Back when he was an unsure sixteen-year-old growing up in Ohio, just discovering his love of acting, he never believed it could be his life. That is until a guidance counselor asked him to promise to be true to himself.
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Broadcaster Dan Harris shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip.
DAN HARRIS
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Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of a mindfulness practice. Every week, you’ll receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle prompts designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations, empowering you to feel restored and refreshed at any moment of the day.
NPR host Peter Sagal shares the story of a motorcycle trip he took through the middle of America – and how it gave him the space he needed to navigate.
DISCOVERY
Jane mcgonigal
PRESENCE
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
ACCEPTANCE
Listen
MICHELLE THALLER
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor takes us back to his very first time on stage — and introduces us to someone who gave him the push he needed to be true to himself. Please note that this episode includes language about self harm.
SUPPORT
About Meditative Story
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
A different storyteller uses high-sensory story telling techniques to transport listeners to a time and place where everything changed for them. As the story unfolds, our host and mindfulness guide, Rohan Gunatillake, offers gentle "mindfulness prompts" embedded in line with the story itself, prompting listeners to settle more deeply in story details, and connect with their own observations. The entire experience is elevated by gorgeous, originally composed musical arrangements by The Holladay Brothers, which rides ethereally above the story. Shifting between music and vibration, the innovative sound design brings the story to life, and transforms the listener's state of mind.
The format invention of Meditative Story
Meditative Story is a first-of-its-kind podcast listening experience that combines the emotional pull of immersive storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of mindfulness practice. Meditative Story is a WaitWhat original series — created by the team who built and led TED's media organization — in close partnership with Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global. The series is made possible with generous support from Salesforce.
The format invention of Meditative Story
About Meditative Story
As a subscriber, every week you'll receive a different Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle promprs designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations. Your entire experience will be elevated by gorgeous music gthat rides ethereally above the narrative. Shifting between music and vibration, the sound design brings each Meditative Story to life, with the aim of giving you the headspace to feel restored and refreshed. Some of the great storytellers you'll hear include On Being's Krista Tippett, restauranteur Danny Meyer, futurist Jane McGonigal, author Pico Iyer, ABC Nightline's Dan Harris, NPR's Peter Sagal, Apple Music's Larry Jackson, NASA's Michelle Thaller, transgender boxer Thomas Page McBee and Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, who shares an epilogue to her late husband Paul Kalanithi's memoir "When Breath Becomes Air." From birth to death — from the most profound and singular to the most common, quotidian, everyday occurences — Meditative Story's 360-degree view on life through story will be as evocative as it is action-based, giving listeners the opportunity to restore themselves at any point of the day.
In each of the 26 episodes that form the first season of Meditative Story:
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A different storyteller uses high-sensory story telling techniques to transport listeners to a time and place where everything changed for them. As the story unfolds, our host and mindfulness guide, Rohan Gunatillake, offers gentle "mindfulness prompts" embedded in line with the story itself, prompting listeners to settle more deeply in story details, and connect with their own observations. The entire experience is elevated by gorgeous, originally composed musical arrangements by The Holladay Brothers, which rides ethereally above the story. Shifting between music and vibration, the innovative sound design brings the story to life, and transforms the listener's state of mind.
SIGN UP
As a subscriber, every week you'll receive a different Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport you to a time and place where everything changed for them — a story you might find yourself relating to deeply. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan will offer gentle promprs designed to calm your mind and help you connect with your own observations. Your entire experience will be elevated by gorgeous music gthat rides ethereally above the narrative. Shifting between music and vibration, the sound design brings each Meditative Story to life, with the aim of giving you the headspace to feel restored and refreshed. Some of the great storytellers you'll hear include On Being's Krista Tippett, restauranteur Danny Meyer, futurist Jane McGonigal, author Pico Iyer, ABC Nightline's Dan Harris, NPR's Peter Sagal, Apple Music's Larry Jackson, NASA's Michelle Thaller, transgender boxer Thomas Page McBee and Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, who shares an epilogue to her late husband Paul Kalanithi's memoir "When Breath Becomes Air." From birth to death — from the most profound and singular to the most common, quotidian, everyday occurences — Meditative Story's 360-degree view on life through story will be as evocative as it is action-based, giving listeners the opportunity to restore themselves at any point of the day.
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
Meditative Story is a first-of-its-kind podcast listening experience that combines the emotional pull of immersive storytelling with the immediate, science-backed benefits of mindfulness practice. Meditative Story is a WaitWhat original series — created by the team who built and led TED's media organization — in close partnership with Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global. The series is made possible with generous support from Salesforce.
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
In each of the 26 episodes that form the first season of Meditative Story:
About Rohan Gunatillake
Our Host
About Rohan Gunatillake
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Rohan Gunatillake
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Rohan Gunatillake is the founder of the best-selling app buddhify and author of Modern Mindfulness: How to Be More Relaxed, Focused, and Kind While Living in a Fast, Digital, Always-On World. With his emphasis on combining meditation, technology and design, Rohan is recognised as one of the most creative yet authentic voices in modern mindfulness, and in 2012 Wired magazine named him in their Smart List of 50 people who will change the world. Rohan is currently associate director of a major healthcare technology initiative for the National Health Service in Scotland and he lives with his family in Glasgow. Follow him on Twitter and Medium
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Our Host
Rohan Gunatillake
Rohan Gunatillake is the founder of the best-selling app buddhify and author of Modern Mindfulness: How to Be More Relaxed, Focused, and Kind While Living in a Fast, Digital, Always-On World. With his emphasis on combining meditation, technology and design, Rohan is recognised as one of the most creative yet authentic voices in modern mindfulness, and in 2012 Wired magazine named him in their Smart List of 50 people who will change the world. Rohan is currently associate director of a major healthcare technology initiative for the National Health Service in Scotland and he lives with his family in Glasgow. Follow him on Twitter and Medium
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
In the same way the printed words in a storybook are embellished and brought to life through visual illustration, the words of the storytellers on Meditative Story are imbued with vibrant color through music and sound design. With a sonic palette ranging from lush string orchestration to modular synthesis and ambient soundscapes, The Holladay Brothers have created a signature musical sound that is more immersive than anything you've heard before in the meditation genre. Notice the evolving tones that precede the very first words you hear, preparing you for the story … or how a flurry of harps is then swallowed by a cascade of choral voices before melting into binaural tones to focus your mind during one of the show's guided meditation prompts. A description of the sleeping quarters on a cargo ship might be accompanied by bellowing horns and meandering woodwinds, while in another episode, the vibrating hum of an analogue drone might set the stage for a long train ride through Japan. And as a story reaches its end, a kaleidoscopic reprisal of the episode's melodic themes elevates the listener and crescendos into a resolving wash that gently returns you to reality. Words and music are two parts of a duet that transport the listener and immerse them in the world of Meditative Story.
The Holladay Brothers
About the Holladay Brothers
The Holladay Brothers
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
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In the same way the printed words in a storybook are embellished and brought to life through visual illustration, the words of the storytellers on Meditative Story are imbued with vibrant color through music and sound design. With a sonic palette ranging from lush string orchestration to modular synthesis and ambient soundscapes, The Holladay Brothers have created a signature musical sound that is more immersive than anything you've heard before in the meditation genre. Notice the evolving tones that precede the very first words you hear, preparing you for the story … or how a flurry of harps is then swallowed by a cascade of choral voices before melting into binaural tones to focus your mind during one of the show's guided meditation prompts. A description of the sleeping quarters on a cargo ship might be accompanied by bellowing horns and meandering woodwinds, while in another episode, the vibrating hum of an analogue drone might set the stage for a long train ride through Japan. And as a story reaches its end, a kaleidoscopic reprisal of the episode's melodic themes elevates the listener and crescendos into a resolving wash that gently returns you to reality. Words and music are two parts of a duet that transport the listener and immerse them in the world of Meditative Story.
About the Holladay Brothers
Our Music
Our Music
The Holladay Brothers
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
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Listen
Sign up for news about Meditative Story, from Thrive and WaitWhat
Change From Within
Change From Within
Making a Small Difference
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How often do you move through your day without really noticing the people around you? How often do you give others in the room space to respond? Too often, we move quickly without being mindful of other voices. But it's mindfulness about the people around you that creates space for trust and connection.
Changing Perspectives
Practice: seek out a long view -- and let that perspective free you from self-restrictions you feel in that moment.
Making a Small Difference
Changing Perspectives
Fostering Connection
Fostering Connection
How often do you move through your day without really noticing the people around you? How often do you give others in the room space to respond? Too often, we move quickly without being mindful of other voices. But it's mindfulness about the people around you that creates space for trust and connection.
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Change can be big or even epic, or it can be much more modest. But powerful all the same.
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Practice: seek out a long view -- and let that perspective free you from self-restrictions you feel in that moment
Changing Perspectives
Salesforce is the perfect partner for Meditative Story because of their devotion to storytelling as a platform for change, and culture of offering mindfulness practices for its 40,000 person team. WaitWhat, Thrive and Salesforce all aim to improve people’s lives, and in doing so, mirror the kind of world we want to live in. In each episode, Salesforce introduces a concept about creating change from within themselves in ways that can cascade out to the world. Each concept is then accompanied by an unexpected micro-step — a simple action — that invites you to begin to bring about that change today.
Salesforce is the perfect partner for Meditative Story because of their devotion to storytelling as a platform for change, and culture of offering mindfulness practices for its 40,000 person team. WaitWhat, Thrive and Salesforce all aim to improve people’s lives, and in doing so, mirror the kind of world we want to live in. In each episode, Salesforce introduces a concept about creating change from within themselves in ways that can cascade out to the world. Each concept is then accompanied by an unexpected micro-step — a simple action — that invites you to begin to bring about that change today.
Change can be big or even epic, or it can be much more modest. But powerful all the same.
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
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Combat your natural negativity bias by emphasizing positive qualities. Lean into a pleasant experience and see how your outlook changes.
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Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi laudantium, totam.
Combat your natural negativity bias by emphasizing positive qualities. Lean into a pleasant experience and see how your outlook changes.
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Practice: seek out a long view -- and let that perspective free you from self-restrictions you feel in that moment
Making a Small Difference
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Growing the Positive
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Growing the Positive
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“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy the freedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern between what it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
acceptance
About Lucy Kalanithi
connection
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My funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
My funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl
Lucy Kalanithi is a doctor and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of the memoir "When Breath Becomes Air." Her Meditative Story becomes a coda to his book. She is moved to share it because, as she says: "I try to make life deeper and richer by opening up space to talk about hard things."
acceptance
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Clarity
Lucy Kalanithi is a doctor and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of the memoir "When Breath Becomes Air." Her Meditative Story becomes a coda to his book. She is moved to share it because, as she says: "I try to make life deeper and richer by opening up space to talk about hard things."
LUCY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Lucy Kalanithi
Episode Transcript
LUCY KALANITHI: Seeing things just as they are has been one of the great lessons of my life. But it’s something that I’ve had to work at consciously for years. The amazing thing about Cady – my funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl – is that she does it effortlessly. She doesn’t have anything to unlearn. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Lucy Kalanithi is an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford Medical School in California, and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, whose posthumous memoir When Breath Becomes Air, I remember reading shortly after it was published in 2016. The story she shares with us here is very special. It’s about how much wisdom and delight there can be – even when we’re surrounded by tragic loss – when we see life and death through the eyes of a child. Eyes unburdened. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Some of the meditation prompts I’ll share during this story may work really well for you. Others, less so. That’s okay. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. KALANITHI: The drive from my house to the cemetery is less than ten minutes. I wind up the Santa Cruz mountains, and then come down just a little bit on the other side. But it feels like a very different place. The weather is different. This is the windward side of the mountain, and it’s colder and more variable than where I live. But today, it’s sunny and I can see five miles out, all the way to the ocean. My emotions are different here. For me, the cemetery is always a physical place where I can feel my feelings. I can’t always predict them before I arrive. Sadness. Yearning. Gratitude. Remembrance. Today, I feel calm. I was a little stressed on the drive, but the moment I get out of my car and take my first breath of the air on this side of the mountain, my body relaxes. I hear the gentle sound of the wind and the squeaky chattering of the chipmunks. I’ve brought my daughter Cady with me to visit her father. She’s four. There are things that children grow up into. Things like feeling part of a family, belonging to a religion, thinking that reading books is important, loving animals. Cady will grow up into the idea of visiting a grave. She won't remember not knowing it. Paul is buried at the edge of the field, facing down towards the ocean. I walk down the hill toward his granite gravestone. It’s covered in… nature. Spray from the air that travels up from the sea. Grass clippings. Bird droppings. The minerals left behind when water evaporates. I take out a rag and clean Paul’s gravestone until the polish shines. Cleaning a grave always feels so ancient, ritualistic. I sit down in the grass, lean my back against his gravestone, and look out at the water. I breathe. And I think. And I feel. GUNATILLAKE: Breathe. Think. Feel. KALANITHI: My mind takes me to a moment here soon after Paul died. Cady was at the age where I took her everywhere in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Tucked close against my body, she slept, both of us still. The cemetery was the only place I could breathe easily. The first time Cady was able to walk down this hill herself, without falling, was a little under a year after Paul died. She was one and a half. I remember bringing Cady here on Paul’s birthday when she was three. She asked if she could put stickers on Paul’s gravestone. I hesitated briefly, but I let her. It made her happy to stick sparkly hearts onto the gray stone. And it made me happy. A place means different things to different people. We say that we’re going to a place, but it’s remarkable how much we bring to that place without even thinking about it. Seeing things just as they are has been one of the great lessons of my life. But it’s something that I’ve had to work at consciously, for years. The amazing thing about Cady – my funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl – is that she does it effortlessly. She doesn’t have anything to unlearn. To Cady, a cemetery is not sad. It’s just a place we go together, like the park or the library. She loves coming here. She gets excited every time she gets to see a deer, or pick up a snail. We lie in the grass. We talk about Paul. We tell stories. One day, I bring some flowers to put on his grave and Cady says, “Can I plant a flower garden?” She picks up each tulip and plants them one by one right into the ground. It’s that kind of place. She knows that her father died, or as grief experts tell you to explain to children, that “his body stopped working.” She doesn’t know that his not-working body is buried a few feet underneath this very ground. She knows about death, because sometimes bees die too and she finds their bodies. She doesn’t know that people think of death as scary, or sad. Things just are, for her. GUNATILLAKE: What just is, for you right now? KALANITHI: One day, Cady’s preschool teacher asks her class to draw portraits of their families. I wonder if she’ll draw the two of us, me and her. Instead, she draws three people and labels them “mom,” “dad,” “baby me.” There used to be three of us together, and now there are two of us. She knows that. She knows she has a dad. But she knows she has to be a baby if Paul’s going to be in the picture. That’s just how it is. Things just are for her. Or things just are not. I wish Paul were here, and I think a lot about what things would be like if he were. I miss his partnership, his counsel raising a kid. I miss him physically; I now have a bed that fits two people, and I’m one person inside of it. For me there’s an empty space. For Cady, Paul is an anchor. She drew that picture knowing that’s where she came from. But at the same time she’s not yearning for a different family. One afternoon, Cady finds a little golden bell on our bookshelf, with a thread on it, and asks me what it is. It’s a party gift we gave out at our wedding, made in India, and it’s really beautiful. I say, “Remember how I told you about how Daddy and I had this big party for our wedding and all of our friends and family came to celebrate when we got married? Well, we gave everybody a present. They all got to take home a bell, like this one.” She immediately asks: “Was I at that party?” She’s a kid centered in her own little world, like all of us, I suppose. I say, “No, you weren’t even born yet. You weren’t even a baby yet.” And she says, “Oh, yeah, that’s because I was dead then.” My mind is blown. Cady knows people are either alive or dead. She doesn’t know that death is often thought of as scary or sad. She knows her father used to be alive and now he’s dead. She knows that she’s now alive but that she didn’t used to be. And she knows that for a brief moment, she and her dad overlapped, as living people, after she was born and before he died. For me, talking about Paul with Cady is part of my job as her mom – for her sake and his. I want Cady to know his story and know it’s okay to ask about him. Every night, we read books before bedtime. I notice that Cady’s developing a keen understanding of the characters – Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig, Little Pea. One night, I realize that’s what Paul is to her, a character she’s getting to know through stories. For her third birthday, I make her a picture book called “Cady and Her Daddy.” It starts “Once upon a time there was a little boy named Paul Kalanithi. Paul loved cats and dogs, and he loved to read. He wanted to learn new things and help people who were having a hard time. So Paul went to school to become a doctor.” It talks about us getting married, and about Cady’s birth: “Cady has brown eyes just like Daddy. She adores cats and dogs.” In the middle, I describe Paul’s grave, and there are pictures of it. The book says: “When Cady was still a baby, Daddy’s body stopped working and Daddy died. To help remember Daddy, Mommy and Cady visit Daddy’s grave. Sometimes the weather is sunny. Sometimes it’s windy... Sometimes they feel sad. Sometimes they feel happy. All of their feelings are okay.” She knows that she never really got to know Paul. But she’s getting to know him through my stories. The other day, she put on two mismatched shoes and I asked her why, and she said, “This is what me and my dad do.” And she’s right. My favorite memory of our time at the cemetery is when Cady and I visit during the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead. This cemetery is relatively new. The people buried here are buried recently, so the graves still get a lot of visitors. It feels like a community. In addition to a lot of Asian Americans, like Paul, there are a lot of Mexican-Americans. When we arrive on the Day of the Dead, the first thing we see is a taco truck, with a line of people. Bright-colored clothing and beautiful outfits. A mariachi band. Adults and children get their faces painted in the traditional fashion, to look like skulls, which is so interesting to see if you’re not used to it. Festive, joyful skulls dancing through a cemetery. It feels totally, totally right. We love community, and we love tacos, and we love being at Paul’s grave. Cady and I get two tacos each. We listen to the music and watch everyone celebrate. We walk over to Paul’s grave, and sit, and picnic. Cady gets a balloon and runs through the cemetery. It’s a real contrast, acting like that in a cemetery, but it feels totally normal and natural to Cady. And I think she’s the one who’s right. I used to think it was me who knew more than my daughter. That I had so much knowledge and so much to teach her. That her understanding was just this little subset of mine, that came mostly from me. But I was wrong. She sees things that I miss. She’s so easily led, and then she leads me. She doesn’t bring as many assumptions to situations, so it’s easier for her to see them as they are. For her, right now, at this age, things just are. I hope I grow up to be more like her. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Lucy’s story. There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy the freedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern between what it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. It’s a lot. To start our meditation, let’s take a moment to check in with how we’re feeling. We all have our own relationships with grief and loss and Lucy’s story may have brought up some stuff for you. It’s ok. Trust your instincts. Do what you need to do. And if it feels ok, let’s acknowledge our feelings, just as Lucy did. If you like you can give them a name: sadness, tenderness, blankness, wishing. Whatever emotions are here, just give them a name. And if you think it’d help and it feels ok, why not place a hand on your heart. Feeling your hand there and breathing. Actually, take a few breaths here. Connecting with what is happening for you right now: the emotions, the physical sensations. We all hold assumptions, views, ideas, and it’s through these that we filter the world. It’s just the result of having a mind and living a life. Filters have their value and their place. But the ones we carry around are not the only ways of experiencing things. Let’s be more like Cady. Let’s be more direct. What’s here? For me right now, what’s here is some calm, some interest. What’s not here is sadness. A little while ago, while listening to Lucy’s story, I felt a twinge of sadness. But it’s not here now. What’s here for you? And what’s not here? And can you be ok with it all? Let’s keep connections alive. Is there someone close to you that you’ve lost? And is there a story, something about them that’s made you how you are today? For Cady it’s wearing mismatched shoes. If there’s something like that for you, bring it to mind. And again, if you like you can place a hand gently on your chest, your heart. Things just are. Or they are not. Breathe. Think. Feel. Sometimes we feel happy. Sometimes we feel sad. All of these feelings are ok. It’s all ok.
Dr. Lucy Kalanithi is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of the bestselling memoir "When Breath Becomes Air," to which she wrote the epilogue. Drawing on experiences as a physician and caregiver, she has interests in health care value, meaning in medicine, patient-centered care and end-of-life care. Dr. Kalanithi is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and an honoree of Mass General Cancer Center's the one hundred. She serves on leadership boards for TEDMED, the American College of Physicians and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care.
LUCY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
LUCY KALANITHI
About Lucy Kalanithi
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy the freedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
From the closing meditation
About Lucy Kalanithi
connection
Lucy Kalanithi
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Clarity
LUCY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
connection
LUCY KALANITHI
LUCY KALANITHI: Seeing things just as they are has been one of the great lessons of my life. But it’s something that I’ve had to work at consciously for years. The amazing thing about Cady – my funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl – is that she does it effortlessly. She doesn’t have anything to unlearn. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Lucy Kalanithi is an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford Medical School in California, and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, whose posthumous memoir When Breath Becomes Air, I remember reading shortly after it was published in 2016. The story she shares with us here is very special. It’s about how much wisdom and delight there can be – even when we’re surrounded by tragic loss – when we see life and death through the eyes of a child. Eyes unburdened. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Some of the meditation prompts I’ll share during this story may work really well for you. Others, less so. That’s okay. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. KALANITHI: The drive from my house to the cemetery is less than ten minutes. I wind up the Santa Cruz mountains, and then come down just a little bit on the other side. But it feels like a very different place. The weather is different. This is the windward side of the mountain, and it’s colder and more variable than where I live. But today, it’s sunny and I can see five miles out, all the way to the ocean. My emotions are different here. For me, the cemetery is always a physical place where I can feel my feelings. I can’t always predict them before I arrive. Sadness. Yearning. Gratitude. Remembrance. Today, I feel calm. I was a little stressed on the drive, but the moment I get out of my car and take my first breath of the air on this side of the mountain, my body relaxes. I hear the gentle sound of the wind and the squeaky chattering of the chipmunks. I’ve brought my daughter Cady with me to visit her father. She’s four. There are things that children grow up into. Things like feeling part of a family, belonging to a religion, thinking that reading books is important, loving animals. Cady will grow up into the idea of visiting a grave. She won't remember not knowing it. Paul is buried at the edge of the field, facing down towards the ocean. I walk down the hill toward his granite gravestone. It’s covered in… nature. Spray from the air that travels up from the sea. Grass clippings. Bird droppings. The minerals left behind when water evaporates. I take out a rag and clean Paul’s gravestone until the polish shines. Cleaning a grave always feels so ancient, ritualistic. I sit down in the grass, lean my back against his gravestone, and look out at the water. I breathe. And I think. And I feel. GUNATILLAKE: Breathe. Think. Feel. KALANITHI: My mind takes me to a moment here soon after Paul died. Cady was at the age where I took her everywhere in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Tucked close against my body, she slept, both of us still. The cemetery was the only place I could breathe easily. The first time Cady was able to walk down this hill herself, without falling, was a little under a year after Paul died. She was one and a half. I remember bringing Cady here on Paul’s birthday when she was three. She asked if she could put stickers on Paul’s gravestone. I hesitated briefly, but I let her. It made her happy to stick sparkly hearts onto the gray stone. And it made me happy. A place means different things to different people. We say that we’re going to a place, but it’s remarkable how much we bring to that place without even thinking about it. Seeing things just as they are has been one of the great lessons of my life. But it’s something that I’ve had to work at consciously, for years. The amazing thing about Cady – my funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl – is that she does it effortlessly. She doesn’t have anything to unlearn. To Cady, a cemetery is not sad. It’s just a place we go together, like the park or the library. She loves coming here. She gets excited every time she gets to see a deer, or pick up a snail. We lie in the grass. We talk about Paul. We tell stories. One day, I bring some flowers to put on his grave and Cady says, “Can I plant a flower garden?” She picks up each tulip and plants them one by one right into the ground. It’s that kind of place. She knows that her father died, or as grief experts tell you to explain to children, that “his body stopped working.” She doesn’t know that his not-working body is buried a few feet underneath this very ground. She knows about death, because sometimes bees die too and she finds their bodies. She doesn’t know that people think of death as scary, or sad. Things just are, for her. GUNATILLAKE: What just is, for you right now? KALANITHI: One day, Cady’s preschool teacher asks her class to draw portraits of their families. I wonder if she’ll draw the two of us, me and her. Instead, she draws three people and labels them “mom,” “dad,” “baby me.” There used to be three of us together, and now there are two of us. She knows that. She knows she has a dad. But she knows she has to be a baby if Paul’s going to be in the picture. That’s just how it is. Things just are for her. Or things just are not. I wish Paul were here, and I think a lot about what things would be like if he were. I miss his partnership, his counsel raising a kid. I miss him physically; I now have a bed that fits two people, and I’m one person inside of it. For me there’s an empty space. For Cady, Paul is an anchor. She drew that picture knowing that’s where she came from. But at the same time she’s not yearning for a different family. One afternoon, Cady finds a little golden bell on our bookshelf, with a thread on it, and asks me what it is. It’s a party gift we gave out at our wedding, made in India, and it’s really beautiful. I say, “Remember how I told you about how Daddy and I had this big party for our wedding and all of our friends and family came to celebrate when we got married? Well, we gave everybody a present. They all got to take home a bell, like this one.” She immediately asks: “Was I at that party?” She’s a kid centered in her own little world, like all of us, I suppose. I say, “No, you weren’t even born yet. You weren’t even a baby yet.” And she says, “Oh, yeah, that’s because I was dead then.” My mind is blown. Cady knows people are either alive or dead. She doesn’t know that death is often thought of as scary or sad. She knows her father used to be alive and now he’s dead. She knows that she’s now alive but that she didn’t used to be. And she knows that for a brief moment, she and her dad overlapped, as living people, after she was born and before he died. For me, talking about Paul with Cady is part of my job as her mom – for her sake and his. I want Cady to know his story and know it’s okay to ask about him. Every night, we read books before bedtime. I notice that Cady’s developing a keen understanding of the characters – Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig, Little Pea. One night, I realize that’s what Paul is to her, a character she’s getting to know through stories. For her third birthday, I make her a picture book called “Cady and Her Daddy.” It starts “Once upon a time there was a little boy named Paul Kalanithi. Paul loved cats and dogs, and he loved to read. He wanted to learn new things and help people who were having a hard time. So Paul went to school to become a doctor.” It talks about us getting married, and about Cady’s birth: “Cady has brown eyes just like Daddy. She adores cats and dogs.” In the middle, I describe Paul’s grave, and there are pictures of it. The book says: “When Cady was still a baby, Daddy’s body stopped working and Daddy died. To help remember Daddy, Mommy and Cady visit Daddy’s grave. Sometimes the weather is sunny. Sometimes it’s windy... Sometimes they feel sad. Sometimes they feel happy. All of their feelings are okay.” She knows that she never really got to know Paul. But she’s getting to know him through my stories. The other day, she put on two mismatched shoes and I asked her why, and she said, “This is what me and my dad do.” And she’s right. My favorite memory of our time at the cemetery is when Cady and I visit during the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead. This cemetery is relatively new. The people buried here are buried recently, so the graves still get a lot of visitors. It feels like a community. In addition to a lot of Asian Americans, like Paul, there are a lot of Mexican-Americans. When we arrive on the Day of the Dead, the first thing we see is a taco truck, with a line of people. Bright-colored clothing and beautiful outfits. A mariachi band. Adults and children get their faces painted in the traditional fashion, to look like skulls, which is so interesting to see if you’re not used to it. Festive, joyful skulls dancing through a cemetery. It feels totally, totally right. We love community, and we love tacos, and we love being at Paul’s grave. Cady and I get two tacos each. We listen to the music and watch everyone celebrate. We walk over to Paul’s grave, and sit, and picnic. Cady gets a balloon and runs through the cemetery. It’s a real contrast, acting like that in a cemetery, but it feels totally normal and natural to Cady. And I think she’s the one who’s right. I used to think it was me who knew more than my daughter. That I had so much knowledge and so much to teach her. That her understanding was just this little subset of mine, that came mostly from me. But I was wrong. She sees things that I miss. She’s so easily led, and then she leads me. She doesn’t bring as many assumptions to situations, so it’s easier for her to see them as they are. For her, right now, at this age, things just are. I hope I grow up to be more like her. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Lucy’s story. There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy the freedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern between what it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. It’s a lot. To start our meditation, let’s take a moment to check in with how we’re feeling. We all have our own relationships with grief and loss and Lucy’s story may have brought up some stuff for you. It’s ok. Trust your instincts. Do what you need to do. And if it feels ok, let’s acknowledge our feelings, just as Lucy did. If you like you can give them a name: sadness, tenderness, blankness, wishing. Whatever emotions are here, just give them a name. And if you think it’d help and it feels ok, why not place a hand on your heart. Feeling your hand there and breathing. Actually, take a few breaths here. Connecting with what is happening for you right now: the emotions, the physical sensations. We all hold assumptions, views, ideas, and it’s through these that we filter the world. It’s just the result of having a mind and living a life. Filters have their value and their place. But the ones we carry around are not the only ways of experiencing things. Let’s be more like Cady. Let’s be more direct. What’s here? For me right now, what’s here is some calm, some interest. What’s not here is sadness. A little while ago, while listening to Lucy’s story, I felt a twinge of sadness. But it’s not here now. What’s here for you? And what’s not here? And can you be ok with it all? Let’s keep connections alive. Is there someone close to you that you’ve lost? And is there a story, something about them that’s made you how you are today? For Cady it’s wearing mismatched shoes. If there’s something like that for you, bring it to mind. And again, if you like you can place a hand gently on your chest, your heart. Things just are. Or they are not. Breathe. Think. Feel. Sometimes we feel happy. Sometimes we feel sad. All of these feelings are ok. It’s all ok.
Lucy Kalanithi is a doctor and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of the memoir When Breath Becomes Air. Her Meditative Story becomes a coda to his book. She is moved to share it because, as she says: "I try to make life deeper and richer by opening up space to talk about hard things."
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LUCY KALANITHI
Dr. Lucy Kalanithi is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of the bestselling memoir "When Breath Becomes Air," to which she wrote the epilogue. Drawing on experiences as a physician and caregiver, she has interests in health care value, meaning in medicine, patient-centered care and end-of-life care. Dr. Kalanithi is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and an honoree of Mass General Cancer Center's the one hundred. She serves on leadership boards for TEDMED, the American College of Physicians and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care.
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
Lucy Kalanithi shares a story about how much delight and wisdom there can be — even when we’re surrounded by tragic loss — when we see life and death through the eyes of a child.
Episode Transcript
My funny, feisty, thoughtful, brave girl
acceptance
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Lucy Kalanithi is a doctor and the widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of the memoir When Breath Becomes Air. Her Meditative Story becomes a coda to his book. She is moved to share it because, as she says: "I try to make life deeper and richer by opening up space to talk about hard things."
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From the closing meditation
Dr. Lucy Kalanithi is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of the bestselling memoir "When Breath Becomes Air," to which she wrote the epilogue. Drawing on experiences as a physician and caregiver, she has interests in health care value, meaning in medicine, patient-centered care and end-of-life care. Dr. Kalanithi is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and an honoree of Mass General Cancer Center's the one hundred. She serves on leadership boards for TEDMED, the American College of Physicians and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care.
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Pico Iyer is a travel writer based in Japan. But he wasn’t always – one fateful assignment launched his entire career ... and his life. He’s moved to share his Meditative Story because this moment almost passed him by. He had to make an effort, a choice to listen to his heart. As he says, "The busier you are, the more you have to step away from busy-ness, from speed, to see what’s truly important in life. After all, it’s the open spaces, the moments when you lose yourself, that help you to find contentment, joy, and peace of mind.
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awareness
centeredness
Episode Transcript
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Travel to Southeast Asia with writer Pico Iyer as he reveals what happens when we allow ourselves to be pulled forward into the unknown, when we wander and let ourselves experience the magic of the scenes unfolding around us.
Pico Iyer
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Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
Travel to Southeast Asia with writer Pico Iyer as he reveals what happens when we allow ourselves to be pulled forward into the unknown, when we wander and let ourselves experience the magic of the scenes unfolding around us.
From the closing meditation
About Pico Iyer
About Pico Iyer
“Let’s start by settling your attention into your body. Letting it all come back. Whether you’re sitting, standing, moving or lying down, just let your awareness fill your whole body. Being open to whatever’s happening. Letting it happen. The body breathing in. The body breathing out. How does your body feel right now? Is there agitation or relaxation? Is there tension or a sense of peace? We’re not trying to create anything, we’re just being open to what’s here and noticing it whatever it is.”
A home that had been waiting for me forever
From the closing meditation
Episode Transcript
“Let’s start by settling your attention into your body. Letting it all come back. Whether you’re sitting, standing, moving or lying down, just let your awareness fill your whole body. Being open to whatever’s happening. Letting it happen. The body breathing in. The body breathing out. How does your body feel right now? Is there agitation or relaxation? Is there tension or a sense of peace? We’re not trying to create anything, we’re just being open to what’s here and noticing it whatever it is.”
Openness
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy thefreedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
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Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Pico Iyer
About Pico Iyer
A home that had been waiting for me forever
centeredness
Pico Iyer
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PICO IYER: I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Thirty years ago, the travel writer Pico Iyer booked himself on a trip to Southeast Asia. It was a trip that would transform his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Visiting foreign places will often put our senses on high alert. In the story you’re about to hear, Pico reveals what can happen when we wander and allow the world to unfold around us. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. At times while listening, you might find that your attention has drifted away. That’s ok. Just bring yourself back. Back to the sound of Pico’s voice. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your eyes open. Your senses open. Meeting the world. IYER: It was my first day ever in Southeast Asia. The Japan Airlines jet touched down, and I stepped out into the hot, spiced air, and then into a tiny, very congested airport. The rainy season was thick, impending, and I could smell diesel fuel and perfume and what might have been incense. As I walked out of the terminal, a small man ushered me towards a little minivan, and it rattled six of us through the night into Bangkok. I was 26, and on a four-week holiday from my 25th floor office in Midtown Manhattan. I looked around me as the darkness fell and I saw lanterns shivering in barely-lit alleyways. Open-front shops were selling indigo silks and small Buddhas, bowls of curry. And every now and then as we wended through the narrow streets, we came upon a golden temple, angel statues kneeling at its entrance, its elaborate roof flying off towards the heavens. This was like nowhere that I knew. I felt unsettled. Intrigued. Drawn closer. Anything could happen now. All my senses were on full alert. GUNATILLAKE: Take a moment to notice which of your senses is most alert right now? Is it sight? Or maybe it's your sense of smell or touch? IYER: Two hours later I was boarding an overnight train for the cool mountain city of Chiang Mai. Farmers were working in the rice-fields all around, next morning, as the sun came up over the mountains. And after I arrived in Chiang Mai, city of hilltop temples, I was greeted by a friendly stranger who promised a trip up to see the animists in the mountains. Again that eerie sense of not knowing what I was getting into but being pulled forward by that very sensation. I am glad I was young enough to follow the dare that life was throwing at me. By the time the sun set that evening, after a long day of climbing and climbing through piney forests, looking out over valleys and occasional wooden houses, I was in a tiny village above the clouds. Tribal leaders were pulling out pipes for opium from the darkness of their huts, and someone said that what they were cooking up was dog. The foreignness of the scene – three nights earlier I’d been walking through Times Square – opened every sense inside me very wide. It was cold sleeping on the slatted floor, and when we woke up the next morning, we were encircled by heavy mist. And so it went for the next twenty-six days. Before long I was walking around the mildewed, collapsing white colonial buildings of Rangoon, where there was a pair of opera glasses in the dusty lost-and-found case in the empty hotel, and the books on sale, yellow pages falling from their worn covers, came from 1933 or 1894. I took an even more rickety train up to the silent expanse of Bagan. There was just one sleepy hotel along the river, and a man standing with a horse-drawn cart as lightning crackled across the valley. Across the emptiness of the plains there were three thousand temples in all: ivory-white, earth-red, golden. GUNATILLAKE: Take a moment to notice how the temple lights twinkle. Their yellowy-white flares dance out from the glowing centers. One dims as the other brightens. Can you picture this in the distance? IYER: It really felt as if a door had opened upon a some part of me I had never seen before. I needed to walk through it and see what was waiting for me on the other side. My last week of this unexpected trip, I was full to bursting, and I just wanted to sort through my photos and my memories, share the magic and the romance with my friends. There’s another world inside our own, I thought. There is another world inside ourselves. On my flight back to JFK however, my Japan Airlines itinerary called for a layover at Narita Airport, near Tokyo. This was the last thing I wanted. And the layover was due to last twenty hours. So suddenly, after twenty-eight days of clamorous moments and exotic strangers I was faced with an empty space, nothing to fill it. I had no interest in seeing another airport town, but what else was there to do? I’d never be back in Japan. So I wandered outside – the day was fresh and blue, with the crisp outlines of early autumn – and I waited for the small white van. Twenty minutes later, I got out on a busy street, cars racing past as in New York City, rows of vending-machines outside tall concrete buildings. And then I spotted a small bridge. I walked across it and suddenly I was in a much quieter area: intimate, human-scaled. GUNATILLAKE: In these new surroundings take a deep breath, hold it, and let it go. IYER: The houses were mostly wooden, very close together. Shoes were laid out outside their entrances and inside were tatami mats, the smell of noodles. Through the back windows I could catch flashes of gold and scarlet – the first colors of the autumn. Instantly I was awake, again, taking everything in. Or at least brought back to that more attentive self that my routine self so often sleepwalks past. I recognized something here, I didn’t need a map. So I made my way through the riddle of narrow streets – I can see and feel them even now, 33 years on – and came upon a vast, white-pebble courtyard. In front of me was a wooden meditation hall. All around were silver gravestones. In front of the hall was a deep black tureen of sorts, in which gold-tipped sticks of incense were flaking off into a bed of ash. I slipped off my shoes and I stepped into the hall. There was almost nothing there; liberation. The fewer things there were to distract me, the fuller, the more alive I felt. I was nowhere but this tatami mat, smelling the incense, listening for footfalls. GUNATILLAKE: How alive do you feel? What can you hear? Let the sounds in your environment just come to you. There’s no need to go out and get them. Just receive the sounds. IYER: I didn’t know then that Narita Temple is actually one of the most celebrated pilgrimage sites in all Japan, a magnet for a thousand years. I couldn’t have guessed that the Dalai Lama sent Tibetans to study there. I simply knew that something in me had fallen away – some armor, perhaps – and in the process some window had opened, onto a much larger landscape. I followed a path then around to the temple’s large garden, and there I saw a flock of kindergarteners, in pink and blue caps, scattering silently across a lawn, collecting autumn leaves. The air was sharp, clear, but I could feel that first pinch of coming cold and dark. I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever. Thailand and Macau, Hong Kong and Burma, they’d all quickened me beyond expectation. Each day a greater wonder than the day before. And yet the place that really changed my life was the place I had never wanted to go to. And as I boarded the 12 hour flight back to JFK, all I could think was: How? How can I get myself back in to that autumn scene? It felt like a painting with a cardboard cutout. Which was missing one final element. That element was me. It took me three full years to disentangle myself from my job, but finally I did and I quit my 25th-floor office for an empty single room on the backstreets of Kyoto. I’ve been living in Japan now more than thirty years and I never look back at the life I left. Not to have returned here would have meant being in exile for all my life. We all have secret homes, I believe, and the beauty, the promise of our global world is that sometimes we are able to find them – and thanks to technology, even to inhabit them. The places where we belong, the places that belong to us, they’re not always the ones with which we have official affiliations. They’re the places that uplift and transport us for no good reason at all. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Pico’s story. Let’s start by settling your attention into your body. Letting it all come back. Whether you’re sitting, standing, moving or lying down, just let your awareness fill your whole body. Being open to whatever’s happening. Letting it happen. The body breathing in. The body breathing out. How does your body feel right now? Is there agitation or relaxation? Is there tension or a sense of peace? We’re not trying to create anything, we’re just being open to what’s here and noticing it whatever it is. If you’re eyes aren’t already open, please open them now. How are they feeling? Do your eyes feel tired or do they feel bright? Can you notice how you’re seeing the world right now? Is your sense of sight focused or wide? What’s grabbing your attention? Just being interested in what sight and seeing is like right now. Moving on from sight and switching, opening out to hearing. There are my words coming and going, but what else is there? What sounds can you notice around you? Being open. Letting the sounds come to you, no need to go out and grab them. Finally, the inner world. How are you feeling? Is your mind busy with thoughts or is it fairly quiet? If there aren’t any particularly obvious emotions present then being open and noticing that too. What you notice is not as important as the quality of the noticing itself. The quality of the awareness. A world of experience always available. A world full of secret homes. All we have to do is be open, and see them.
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PICO'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Pico Iyer is a travel writer based in Japan. But he wasn’t always – one fateful assignment launched his entire career ... and his life. He’s moved to share his Meditative Story because this moment almost passed him by. He had to make an effort, a choice to listen to his heart. As he says, "The busier you are, the more you have to step away from busy-ness, from speed, to see what’s truly important in life. After all, it’s the open spaces, the moments when you lose yourself, that help you to find contentment, joy, and peace of mind.
awareness
Embracing the journey’s adventure without attachment to its outcome.
Listen
awareness
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centeredness
Openness
A home that had been waiting for me forever
Episode Transcript
“I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever." AD ACT I The experience you’re about to have exists because our sponsor Salesforce believes in it — deeply. Salesforce brings companies and customers together, helping you deliver personalized customer experiences on one integrated platform. What you may not know is that equality is a core value at Salesforce. They believe that businesses can be a powerful platform for change. And that change starts inside ourselves. All of us. How often do you move through your day without really noticing the people around you? Without really connecting with them? How often do you give others in the room space to respond? Too often, we move quickly without being mindful of the other voices. But it’s that mindfulness about the people around you that creates space for trust and connection needed to start making change. Later in the show, I’ll share a micro-action you can take to spark this kind of change. Thank you, Salesforce, for being a part of Meditative Story in this most thoughtful way. STORY INTRODUCTION Thirty years ago, the travel writer - [slowly with emphasis] Pico Iyer - booked himself on a trip to Southeast Asia. It was a trip that would transform his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Visiting foreign places will often put our senses on high alert. In the story you’re about to hear, Pico reveals what can happen when we wander and allow the world to unfold around us. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. At times while listening, you might find that your attention has drifted away. That’s ok. Just bring yourself back. Back to the sound of Pico’s voice. STORY INTRODUCTION (CONT) The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your eyes open. Your senses open. Meeting the world. STORY PICO IYER: It was my first day ever in Southeast Asia. The Japan Airlines jet touched down, and I stepped out into the hot, spiced air, and then into a tiny, very congested airport. The rainy season was thick, impending, and I could smell diesel fuel and perfume and what might have been incense. As I walked out of the terminal, a small man ushered me towards a little minivan, and it rattled six of us through the night into Bangkok. I was 26, and on a four-week holiday from my 25th floor office in Midtown Manhattan. I looked around me as the darkness fell and I saw lanterns shivering in barely-lit alleyways. Open-front shops were selling indigo silks and small Buddhas, bowls of curry. And every now and then, as we wended through the narrow streets, we came upon a golden temple, angel statues kneeling at its entrance, its elaborate roof flying off towards the heavens. This was like nowhere that I knew. I felt unsettled. Intrigued. Drawn closer. Anything could happen now. All my senses were on full alert. GUNATILLAKE: MINDFULNESS PROMPT VERSION B: Take a moment to notice which of your senses is most alert right now? Is it sight? Or maybe it's your sense of smell or touch? IYER: Two hours later I was boarding an overnight train for the cool mountain city of Chiang Mai. Farmers were working in the rice-fields all around next morning as the sun came up over the mountains. And after I arrived in Chiang Mai, city of hilltop temples, I was greeted by a friendly stranger who promised a trip up to see the animists in the mountains. Again that eerie sense of not knowing what I was getting into but being pulled forward by that very sensation. I am glad I was young enough to follow the dare that life was throwing at me. By the time the sun set that evening, after a long day of climbing and climbing through piney forests, looking out over valleys and occasional wooden houses, I was in a tiny village above the clouds. Tribal leaders were pulling out pipes for opium from the darkness of their huts and someone said that what they were cooking up was dog. The foreignness of the scene. Three nights earlier I’d been walking through Times Square opened every sense inside me very wide. It was cold sleeping on the slatted floor, and when we woke up the next morning, we were encircled by heavy mist. And so it went for the next twenty-six days. Before long I was walking around the mildewed, collapsing white colonial buildings of Rangoon, where there was a pair of opera glasses in the dusty lost-and-found case in the empty hotel, and the books on sale, yellow pages falling from their worn covers, came from 1933 or 1894. I took an even more rickety train up to the silent expanse of Bagan. There was just one sleepy hotel along the river, and a man standing with a horse-drawn cart as lightning crackled across the valley. Across the emptiness of the plains there were three thousand temples in all, ivory-white, earth-red, golden. GUNATILLAKE: MINDFULNESS PROMPT VERSION A: Take a moment to notice how the temple lights twinkle. Their yellowy-white flares dance out from the glowing centers. One dims as the other brightens. Can you picture this in the distance? IYER: It really felt as if some door had opened upon a some part of me I had never seen before. I needed to walk through it and see what was waiting for me on the other side. My last week of this unexpected trip, I was full to bursting, and I just wanted to sort through my photos and my memories, share the magic and the romance with my friends. There’s another world inside our own, I thought. There is another world inside ourselves. On my flight back to JFK however, my Japan AirLines itinerary called for a layover at Narita Airport, near Tokyo. It was the last thing I wanted. And the layover was due to last twenty hours. So suddenly, after twenty-eight days of clamorous moments and exotic strangers I was faced with an empty space, nothing to fill it. I had no interest in seeing another airport town, but what else was there to do? I’d never be back in Japan. So I wandered outside—the day was fresh and blue, with the crisp outlines of early autumn—and I waited for the small white van. Twenty minutes later, I got out on a busy street, cars racing past as in New York City, rows of vending-machines outside tall concrete buildings. And then I spotted a small bridge. I walked across it and suddenly I was in a much quieter quarter, intimate human-scaled. GUNATILLAKE: MINDFULNESS PROMPT VERSION A: In these new surroundings take a deep breath [pause], hold it [pause] and let it go. IYER: The houses were mostly wooden, very close together. Shoes were laid outside their entrances and inside were tatami mats, the smell of noodles. Through the back windows I could catch flashes of gold and scarlet, the first colors of the autumn. Instantly I was awake, again, taking everything in. Or at least brought back to that more attentive self that my routine self so often sleepwalks past. I recognized something here, I didn’t need a map. So I made my way through the riddle of narrow streets—I can see and feel them even now, 33 years on—and came upon a vast, white-pebble courtyard. In front of me was a wooden meditation hall. All around were silver gravestones. In front of the hall was a deep black tureen of sorts in which gold-tipped sticks of incense were flaking off into a bed of ash. I slipped off my shoes and I stepped into the hall. There was almost nothing there; liberation. The fewer things there were to distract me, the fuller and the more alive I felt. I was nowhere but this tatami mat, smelling the incense, listening for footfalls. GUNATILLAKE: MINDFULNESS PROMPT VERSION B: How alive do you feel? What can you hear? Let the sounds in your environment just come to you. There’s no need to go out and get them. Just receive the sounds. IYER: I didn’t know then that Narita temple is actually one of the most celebrated pilgrimage sites in all Japan, a magnet for a thousand years. I couldn’t have guessed that the Dalai Lama sent Tibetans to study there. I simply knew that something in me had fallen away—some armor, perhaps—and in the process some window had opened, onto a much larger landscape. I followed a path around to the temple’s large garden, and there I saw a flock of kindergarteners, in pink and blue caps, scattering silently across a lawn, collecting autumn leaves. The air was sharp, clear, but I could feel the first pinch of coming cold and dark. I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever. Thailand and Macau, Hong Kong and Burma, they’d all quickened me beyond expectation. Each day a greater wonder than the day before. And yet the place that really changed my life was the place I had never wanted to go to. And as I boarded the 12 hour flight back to JFK, all I could think was how? How can I get myself back in to that autumn scene? It felt like a painting with a cardboard cutout. Which was missing one final element. That element was me. It took me three full years to disentangle myself from my job, but finally I did and I quit my 25th-floor office for an empty single room on the backstreets of Kyoto. I’ve been living in Japan now more than thirty years and I never look back at the life I left. Not to have returned here would have meant being in exile for all my life. We all have secret homes I believe and the beauty, the promise of our global world is that sometimes we are able to find them, and thanks to technology, even to inhabit them. The places where we belong, the places that belong to us, they’re not always the ones with which we have official affiliations. They’re the places that uplift and transport us for no good reason at all. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Pico’s story. In just a moment, I’ll guide you through a closing meditation. After that, I’ll share a micro-action that you can take into your day, inspired by the mindfulness practices of our sponsor, Salesforce. CLOSING MEDITATION Let’s start by settling your attention into your body. Letting it all come back. Whether you’re sitting, standing, moving or lying down, just let your awareness fill your whole body. Being open to whatever’s happening. Letting it happen. The body breathing in. The body breathing out. How does your body feel right now? Is there agitation or relaxation? Is there tension or a sense of peace? We’re not trying to create anything, we’re just being open to what’s here and noticing it whatever it is. If you’re eyes aren’t already open, please open them now. How are they feeling? Do your eyes feel tired or do they feel bright? Can you notice how you’re seeing the world right now? Is your sense of sight focused or wide? What’s grabbing your attention? Just being interested in what sight and seeing is like right now. Moving on from sight and switching, opening out to hearing. There are my words coming and going, but what else is there? What sounds can you notice around you? Being open. Letting the sounds come to you, no need to go out and grab them. Finally, the inner world. How are you feeling? Is your mind busy with thoughts or is it fairly quiet? If there aren’t any particularly obvious emotions present then being open and noticing that too. What you notice is not as important as the quality of the noticing itself. The quality of the awareness. [pause] A world of experience always available. A world full of secret homes. All we have to do is be open, and see them. AD ACT II GUNATILLAKE: Earlier, I mentioned how you can bring mindfulness to your connection with others. Our sponsor, Salesforce, practices mindfulness as an essential part of their culture. They’ve asked me to share one powerful microstep you can try — to foster that connection. It’s simple: Once a day, consider someone else’s perspective. Whether it’s someone you tend to pass by, or someone you struggle to feel connection with — thinking about their experiences can help you build a new relationship, let go of a grudge, or expand your own perspective. It can be as straightforward as asking yourself, “What might this person be feeling?” And with that simple action, our gratitude goes out to Salesforce for supporting storytellers who open up something within us, and spark the kind of positive change that cascades out into the world. Powerful perspectives — shared through a story — make change possible. THANK YOU AND CLOSING CREDITS Meditative Story is a WaitWhat original in partnership with Thrive Global. The show is produced at the studio inside SY Partners in New York. Our executive producers are Deron Triff, June Cohen and Arianna Huffington. Our producers are Sabrina Farhi, Dan Katz, Emily Johnson, Marina (KUH-DECK-ULL), and Juliana (JULI-AH-NA) Stone. Our supervising producers are Jai Punjabi and Peter Koechley (KECK-LY). Our curator is Cary Goldstein. Original music and sound design is by the Holladay Brothers. Mixing and mastering by Bryan Pyew. Special thanks to Alison Kreusch (KROOSH), Steven Sherill, Anne Sachs, Danny Shea and Sarah Sandman. And I’m Rohan Gunatillake, creator of the Buddhify meditation app and your host. Visit [slow down here] meditativestory - dot - com to find the transcript for this episode.
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Pico iyer
Pico Iyer is the author of two novels and thirteen works of nonfiction on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from Graham Greene to Canadian visions of diversity, from forgotten nations to the 21st-century global order. His books have been translated into 23 languages, and his 2008 meditation on the XIVth Dalai Lama, "The Open Road," and his TED Book, "The Art of Stillness," were best-sellers. An essayist for Time since 1986, he is a constant contributor to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Financial Times and more than 250 others worldwide. In 2019 he is bringing out two new books about Japan ("Autumn Light and A Beginner’s Guide to Japan") and one on Singapore ("This Could Be Home").
Pico Iyer is a travel writer based in Japan. But he wasn’t always – one fateful assignment launched his entire career ... and his life. He’s moved to share his Meditative Story because this moment almost passed him by. He had to make an effort, a choice to listen to his heart. As he says, "The busier you are, the more you have to step away from busy-ness, from speed, to see what’s truly important in life. After all, it’s the open spaces, the moments when you lose yourself, that help you to find contentment, joy, and peace of mind."
Embracing the journey’s adventure without attachment to its outcome.
Pico iyer
Openness
Pico Iyer
PICO'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Pico Iyer is the author of two novels and thirteen works of nonfiction on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from Graham Greene to Canadian visions of diversity, from forgotten nations to the 21st-century global order. His books have been translated into 23 languages, and his 2008 meditation on the XIVth Dalai Lama, "The Open Road," and his TED Book, "The Art of Stillness," were best-sellers. An essayist for Time since 1986, he is a constant contributor to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Financial Times and more than 250 others worldwide. In 2019 he is bringing out two new books about Japan ("Autumn Light and A Beginner’s Guide to Japan") and one on Singapore ("This Could Be Home").
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
From the closing meditation
PICO IYER: I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Thirty years ago, the travel writer Pico Iyer booked himself on a trip to Southeast Asia. It was a trip that would transform his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Visiting foreign places will often put our senses on high alert. In the story you’re about to hear, Pico reveals what can happen when we wander and allow the world to unfold around us. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. At times while listening, you might find that your attention has drifted away. That’s ok. Just bring yourself back. Back to the sound of Pico’s voice. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your eyes open. Your senses open. Meeting the world. IYER: It was my first day ever in Southeast Asia. The Japan Airlines jet touched down, and I stepped out into the hot, spiced air, and then into a tiny, very congested airport. The rainy season was thick, impending, and I could smell diesel fuel and perfume and what might have been incense. As I walked out of the terminal, a small man ushered me towards a little minivan, and it rattled six of us through the night into Bangkok. I was 26, and on a four-week holiday from my 25th floor office in Midtown Manhattan. I looked around me as the darkness fell and I saw lanterns shivering in barely-lit alleyways. Open-front shops were selling indigo silks and small Buddhas, bowls of curry. And every now and then as we wended through the narrow streets, we came upon a golden temple, angel statues kneeling at its entrance, its elaborate roof flying off towards the heavens. This was like nowhere that I knew. I felt unsettled. Intrigued. Drawn closer. Anything could happen now. All my senses were on full alert. GUNATILLAKE: Take a moment to notice which of your senses is most alert right now? Is it sight? Or maybe it's your sense of smell or touch? IYER: Two hours later I was boarding an overnight train for the cool mountain city of Chiang Mai. Farmers were working in the rice-fields all around, next morning, as the sun came up over the mountains. And after I arrived in Chiang Mai, city of hilltop temples, I was greeted by a friendly stranger who promised a trip up to see the animists in the mountains. Again that eerie sense of not knowing what I was getting into but being pulled forward by that very sensation. I am glad I was young enough to follow the dare that life was throwing at me. By the time the sun set that evening, after a long day of climbing and climbing through piney forests, looking out over valleys and occasional wooden houses, I was in a tiny village above the clouds. Tribal leaders were pulling out pipes for opium from the darkness of their huts, and someone said that what they were cooking up was dog. The foreignness of the scene – three nights earlier I’d been walking through Times Square – opened every sense inside me very wide. It was cold sleeping on the slatted floor, and when we woke up the next morning, we were encircled by heavy mist. And so it went for the next twenty-six days. Before long I was walking around the mildewed, collapsing white colonial buildings of Rangoon, where there was a pair of opera glasses in the dusty lost-and-found case in the empty hotel, and the books on sale, yellow pages falling from their worn covers, came from 1933 or 1894. I took an even more rickety train up to the silent expanse of Bagan. There was just one sleepy hotel along the river, and a man standing with a horse-drawn cart as lightning crackled across the valley. Across the emptiness of the plains there were three thousand temples in all: ivory-white, earth-red, golden. GUNATILLAKE: Take a moment to notice how the temple lights twinkle. Their yellowy-white flares dance out from the glowing centers. One dims as the other brightens. Can you picture this in the distance? IYER: It really felt as if a door had opened upon a some part of me I had never seen before. I needed to walk through it and see what was waiting for me on the other side. My last week of this unexpected trip, I was full to bursting, and I just wanted to sort through my photos and my memories, share the magic and the romance with my friends. There’s another world inside our own, I thought. There is another world inside ourselves. On my flight back to JFK however, my Japan Airlines itinerary called for a layover at Narita Airport, near Tokyo. This was the last thing I wanted. And the layover was due to last twenty hours. So suddenly, after twenty-eight days of clamorous moments and exotic strangers I was faced with an empty space, nothing to fill it. I had no interest in seeing another airport town, but what else was there to do? I’d never be back in Japan. So I wandered outside – the day was fresh and blue, with the crisp outlines of early autumn – and I waited for the small white van. Twenty minutes later, I got out on a busy street, cars racing past as in New York City, rows of vending-machines outside tall concrete buildings. And then I spotted a small bridge. I walked across it and suddenly I was in a much quieter area: intimate, human-scaled. GUNATILLAKE: In these new surroundings take a deep breath, hold it, and let it go. IYER: The houses were mostly wooden, very close together. Shoes were laid out outside their entrances and inside were tatami mats, the smell of noodles. Through the back windows I could catch flashes of gold and scarlet – the first colors of the autumn. Instantly I was awake, again, taking everything in. Or at least brought back to that more attentive self that my routine self so often sleepwalks past. I recognized something here, I didn’t need a map. So I made my way through the riddle of narrow streets – I can see and feel them even now, 33 years on – and came upon a vast, white-pebble courtyard. In front of me was a wooden meditation hall. All around were silver gravestones. In front of the hall was a deep black tureen of sorts, in which gold-tipped sticks of incense were flaking off into a bed of ash. I slipped off my shoes and I stepped into the hall. There was almost nothing there; liberation. The fewer things there were to distract me, the fuller, the more alive I felt. I was nowhere but this tatami mat, smelling the incense, listening for footfalls. GUNATILLAKE: How alive do you feel? What can you hear? Let the sounds in your environment just come to you. There’s no need to go out and get them. Just receive the sounds. IYER: I didn’t know then that Narita Temple is actually one of the most celebrated pilgrimage sites in all Japan, a magnet for a thousand years. I couldn’t have guessed that the Dalai Lama sent Tibetans to study there. I simply knew that something in me had fallen away – some armor, perhaps – and in the process some window had opened, onto a much larger landscape. I followed a path then around to the temple’s large garden, and there I saw a flock of kindergarteners, in pink and blue caps, scattering silently across a lawn, collecting autumn leaves. The air was sharp, clear, but I could feel that first pinch of coming cold and dark. I couldn’t tell you why but I felt I knew the place. I knew it better than the English road on which I’d been born, better than the apartment where I lived now on 20th Street. It was like a home that had been waiting for me forever. Thailand and Macau, Hong Kong and Burma, they’d all quickened me beyond expectation. Each day a greater wonder than the day before. And yet the place that really changed my life was the place I had never wanted to go to. And as I boarded the 12 hour flight back to JFK, all I could think was: How? How can I get myself back in to that autumn scene? It felt like a painting with a cardboard cutout. Which was missing one final element. That element was me. It took me three full years to disentangle myself from my job, but finally I did and I quit my 25th-floor office for an empty single room on the backstreets of Kyoto. I’ve been living in Japan now more than thirty years and I never look back at the life I left. Not to have returned here would have meant being in exile for all my life. We all have secret homes, I believe, and the beauty, the promise of our global world is that sometimes we are able to find them – and thanks to technology, even to inhabit them. The places where we belong, the places that belong to us, they’re not always the ones with which we have official affiliations. They’re the places that uplift and transport us for no good reason at all. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Pico’s story. Let’s start by settling your attention into your body. Letting it all come back. Whether you’re sitting, standing, moving or lying down, just let your awareness fill your whole body. Being open to whatever’s happening. Letting it happen. The body breathing in. The body breathing out. How does your body feel right now? Is there agitation or relaxation? Is there tension or a sense of peace? We’re not trying to create anything, we’re just being open to what’s here and noticing it whatever it is. If you’re eyes aren’t already open, please open them now. How are they feeling? Do your eyes feel tired or do they feel bright? Can you notice how you’re seeing the world right now? Is your sense of sight focused or wide? What’s grabbing your attention? Just being interested in what sight and seeing is like right now. Moving on from sight and switching, opening out to hearing. There are my words coming and going, but what else is there? What sounds can you notice around you? Being open. Letting the sounds come to you, no need to go out and grab them. Finally, the inner world. How are you feeling? Is your mind busy with thoughts or is it fairly quiet? If there aren’t any particularly obvious emotions present then being open and noticing that too. What you notice is not as important as the quality of the noticing itself. The quality of the awareness. A world of experience always available. A world full of secret homes. All we have to do is be open, and see them.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Travel to Southeast Asia with writer Pico Iyer as he reveals what happens when we allow ourselves to be pulled forward into the unknown, when we wander and let ourselves experience the magic of the scenes unfolding around us.
PICO'S MEDITATIVE STORY
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Episode Transcript
Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
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ARIANNA'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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Arianna Huffington
About Arianna Huffington
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Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
From the closing meditation
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books. Her legendary career as an entrepreneur and author began with one big, fearless leap into the unknown: her decision to leave her childhood home in Greece and—without knowing a word of English—go to school at Cambridge. And that leap begins with this story, a testament to her mother's warmth, determination and love for her daughter. In telling this story, she says: "I want to honor not only the wisdom of my mother, but the wisdom of parents everywhere."
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Life and love and the moment
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy thefreedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
ARianna'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of 15 books, including the recent bestsellers "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time." In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to and cited media brands on the web. In August 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.
Life and love and the moment
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? STORY INTRODUCTION ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Arianna Huffington grew up in an unassuming one-bedroom apartment above the bustling streets of Athens, Greece. What she lacked in material things, she regained many times over in the rich home her mother created for her and her sister. There, at their kitchen table, Arianna’s spirit of adventure was born. And it was there that her mother taught her the universal wisdom of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Before I hand over to Arianna, let’s see if we can embody a sense of alertness. Soon you’re going to hear about a moment, a period of time which was to change the course of her life. So let’s get ready to meet that story with brightness, curiosity, and attention. For you that might mean straightening out your body a little. Or relaxing your face. Or taking a breath. Do what feels right for you. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. STORY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Every time I go back to Athens, I return to the tiny street where I grew up. It was just the three of us, my mother, my little sister Agapi, and me. My parents had separated, so we all shared this cramped one-bedroom apartment across the street from a fire station in the middle of the city. But my mother made it seem grand and full of life. And she’d do this through cooking -- constant, non-stop cooking. For my mother, food was life and life was food. If you were eating, it meant you were alive. Food was a kind of love offering, and she was a high priestess. Her ceremonial robes were a house dress and a food-smeared apron. Our lives in Athens revolved around the kitchen table. Agapi and I would hurry home from school, and even before we’d throw open the door, we’d be coaxed in down the hallway with the smells of dill, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, and fennel. These smells were her emissaries. She sent them to greet us even before she could emerge from the kitchen and give us a hug. With her cooking, she created a micro-climate of her own that paid no mind to the outside world. Then we’d throw down our school bags and descend on the kitchen table. We’d sit at that table for hours. Eating, talking, doing homework, talking over problems from school, problems from life, and eating some more. And then finally my mother would bring out the thing we loved the most: walnuts and honey. That’s how we’d end each meal, drunk on Greek honey. GUNATILLAKE: From your own childhood, is there a dish or type of food that particularly evokes good memories? Take a moment to bring it to mind. And feel free to smile. Can you picture the food and the people or the place you most associate with it? HUFFINGTON: I remember one particular day, I see a magazine on my way home from school. The cover is a photo of Cambridge University in England. Now, I’d never been to England. In fact, I’d never been anywhere outside of Greece. But that photo catches my eye. It stops me. I get home, fly through the doorway to be greeted by the aroma of my favorite dish, artichokes in a creamy dill sauce. There were other assorted dishes there, too -- spanakopita, hummus, eggplants — those were always around. They got changed regularly, but you never really saw it, they were just always there. So I run in, throw my bag down, open the magazine and spread it out on the table. “Mommy, look at this.” “What is it, honey?” she says. “It’s Cambridge,” I say. “it’s in England.” “I know that,” my mother replies. “But why are you showing it to me?” “Because I want to go there.” “You mean you want to visit there?” “No, I want to go to university there. I love it and that’s where I want to go to school.” I’m probably more surprised than my mother to hear this come out of my mouth. The photo had touched something deep inside me, something I hadn’t really articulated to myself at the time. It was the desire to open up new possibilities, and above all to learn, learn, learn. I loved school and I loved learning – about languages, about history, about other places. Learning, for me, was what food was for my mother. To learn is to be alive. And Cambridge seemed liked the center of the learning universe. By the time I make my proclamation, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else in the world. Even if it means leaving this love-filled room, and the very table I’d put the magazine down on. So I look up at my mother, not knowing what she’s going to say. She’d never been anything but supportive, but what I’d just said was ridiculous. Teenagers want a lot of things they can’t have. But instead my mother says: “That’s amazing. It looks beautiful. Let’s see how we can get you there.” I’m stunned. Not because of her positive reaction – I should never have expected anything else --but because her taking the idea seriously stopped my giddy reverie and brought me back down to earth. Back to our tiny apartment in Athens. Now, there was one problem with my going to university in England – I didn’t speak English. “No problem,” my mother says. “I’m sure you can learn English quickly.” “Really?” I say. I’m amazed not by her confidence in my learning English, but to the whole thing, the whole crazy idea. “Sure. Maybe we can go visit, just to see what it's like. I’ll see if I can get us some cheap tickets." It’s probably a good thing that neither of us had any clue just how incredibly difficult it was going to be. That’s what her wall of unconditional love and support and optimism and artichokes and spanakopita did – it created an insulating barrier between me and the harsh outside world. A little hothouse where my naivete could slowly metamorphosize into something resembling confidence. Every day for the next several weeks, my mother did research. She never went to college, but she had street smarts. She never doubted that she could figure something out and make it happen through sheer determination. At every meal, she would give us updates on what she’d found out. “So, in order for you to get into Cambridge, you first have to take something called the ‘general certificates of education.’ Then you have to take a special entrance exam, and then a verbal exam.” “Wow,” I remember saying. “That seems like a lot. How are we ever going to do all that?” “Well, I also found out you can take your general certificates of education through the British Council.” “But I still don't speak English,” I say. “I also found this intensive class where you can start learning English,” she says. There was really nothing I could say. She’d figured it all out. She even looked into how to apply for a scholarship. Sure it was all daunting, and there was a lot of red tape and forms to fill out. But my mother could turn anything into a big adventure. My first step into the world outside of Greece was no exception. But the most important thing my mother did for me wasn’t all the research and the planning. And it wasn’t even the confidence she had in me. It was the sense that even if I didn't get in, that that would be okay, too. She didn’t get wrapped up in any particular outcome. We’d just be on to the next adventure. That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? So then it came time to visit Cambridge. My mother got us both tickets – of course she wheedled some cheap seats somehow. And I remember those seats because they didn’t recline... at all. I’d never flown before, but it was fine, because, who knows, maybe Cambridge required extra-rigid posture to keep my mind properly attuned. From the airport, we went straight to London. Of course, it was pouring rain. From there, we took the train to Cambridge. It continued to pour all the way. To the locals it was probably a gray, dreary day, but to me it seemed lush and sultry and green. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? A young Arianna seeing through the greyness of the English weather, her mind full of wonder and delight as she explores this famous old university with its striking architecture and inviting lawns. HUFFINGTON: And then finally we were there. It was hard to believe. In most cases, as I’ve learned, a place rarely lives up to what it looks like in a travel brochure. So even on this wet, gray day, it was so much more vivid than I’d imagined. Building after building. There were students all over the place. Cambridge students. Who spoke perfect English. It was thrilling, but also intimidating. Which my mother sensed. “Well, here we are,” she says, as if we’d just arrived at our local grocery store. “Let’s go.” The day itself was a bit of a blur. Even though I wanted to major in economics, we didn’t go visit the economics department. Nor did we go to the admissions office, which might have been the obvious thing to do. We didn’t even talk to anybody. We just walked around Cambridge. All day. Two Greek women who barely spoke English. Like spies doing reconnaissance. But I think what we were really doing was just walking around the place until it felt natural for me to be there. It was a kind of in-person visualization. I’m walking around just like the real students are. In the same buildings. Nothing bad is happening. Nobody is reacting. If I got in, this is what I’d be doing. Maybe it really is possible. GUNATILLAKE: How does the idea of an in-person visualisation sound to you? Arianna explored what it would be like to be her future self by walking around Cambridge as if she were a student there, not a visitor. Are there any experiences for you that you would want to become real? What would your in-person visualisation look like? And the more we walked, the more I loved it. I thought it was gorgeous, the colleges, the libraries, the river. By the end of the day it felt oddly familiar and at the same time ancient. It all reeked of history. A history I ached to be a part of. It was overwhelming, the sort of place that could take over your life. Then we took the train right back to London, went straight to the airport, and took the flight back to Athens. Our seats reclined this time. Did they know I’d been to Cambridge? Reclining seats seemed like something that would be normal for Cambridge students. Maybe it was a cosmic message of some kind. On the way back, we hatched the final part of our plan. Or at least my mother did. The plan was that I would come back to London after taking my General Certificate of Education to prepare for my entrance exam and continue to study English. Around people who actually spoke English. And after all that was done and the entrance exams were taken, there wasn’t much left to do but wait. But I wasn’t riddled with anxiety. And that was because of my mother. Life was still going on, and would go on, one way or another. We weren’t waiting for life to begin, this was life. And then the day came. A telegram arrived. It’s waiting for me when I get home from school. My mother had put it on the table and motioned to it nonchalantly. I tear it open. “Accepted” and granted an exhibition - which is a form of scholarship. I got in. I can’t believe it. It’s just a piece of paper, but it seems more unreal than our actual visit had been. My mother smiles and then hugs me. But she isn’t jumping up and down, as I am inside. Just as she wouldn’t love me any less if I’d gotten rejected, she also couldn’t love me more just because I’d gotten accepted. That’s what allowed me to reach what really should have been an unattainable goal. It wasn’t a journey filled with anxiety and fear. It was an adventure. One always served, like your favorite dish, with unconditional love. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Arianna’s story. In just a moment, I’ll guide you through a closing meditation. After that, I’ll share a micro-step that you can take into your day, inspired by the mindfulness practices of our sponsor, Salesforce. CLOSING MEDITATION GUNATILLAKE: Of all the themes in Arianna’s story, the one that stands out the most - for me - is that of adventure. With her sudden calling to study at Cambridge, she embarks on a series of challenges, all of which she overcomes to finally win her prize. And by loving the adventure, and being loved through the adventure, she’s able to complete her journey without anxiety or fear. I often think about my own meditation practice, and meditation in general as an adventure or a journey. However long you’ve been practising, there are always ups and downs - times of clarity and even exhilaration, often shortly followed by times of wondering why you’re even bothering to do it in the first place. And back again. But what keeps me going is the process itself, for whatever results come about in the long-term, there’s an intrinsic delight and no small amount of wisdom that comes from just doing the practice and sticking with it. And the same applies for a single meditation session as it does for a whole lifetime of practice. Just being on an adventure can be reward enough. So let’s go on one. However your body is right now, this is the vessel we’re going in. So whether you’re sitting down, or walking, standing or lying, do what you need to to embody the qualities you want to express - openness, steadiness, courage. With your mind relaxed, ask yourself the question ‘what’s my next thought going to be?’ and then just wait for it. And when the thought appears, catch it with your awareness. And when you’ve done that just reset, relax and start watching again, watching for the next thought to arise. Alert and ready. What the content of the thought is, isn’t that important. What matters is your ability to catch it. That’s what we’re most interested in. While doing this technique, as with all adventures you’ll likely meet some challenges. Distraction as you get caught into a train of thought or a daydream. Doubt as to whether you’re doing it right. Aversion to the idea of doing it at all. These are all welcome, just characters in your adventure, here to help you come back to your intention and to try again. So let’s try again. Watching your mind for the next thought to appear. And catching it when it does. Doing this just for a minute or so, you’ll have failures and successes. Sometimes you’ll have a nice bright awareness, illuminating what’s happening in your mind in real time. And sometimes doing this technique, it might be a bit foggy and you’ll feel like you’ve not discovered a single thing about the habits and patterns of your inner life. But just like Arianna’s mother, part of you knows that the thing that matters most isn’t the results - they’ll come in time - what matters most is the adventure itself.
“Of all the themes in Arianna’s story, the one that stands out the most - for me - is that of adventure. With her sudden calling to study at Cambridge, she embarks on a series of challenges, all of which she overcomes to finally win her prize. And by loving the adventure, and being loved through the adventure, she’s able to complete her journey without anxiety or fear.”
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About Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? STORY INTRODUCTION ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Arianna Huffington grew up in an unassuming one-bedroom apartment above the bustling streets of Athens, Greece. What she lacked in material things, she regained many times over in the rich home her mother created for her and her sister. There, at their kitchen table, Arianna’s spirit of adventure was born. And it was there that her mother taught her the universal wisdom of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Before I hand over to Arianna, let’s see if we can embody a sense of alertness. Soon you’re going to hear about a moment, a period of time which was to change the course of her life. So let’s get ready to meet that story with brightness, curiosity, and attention. For you that might mean straightening out your body a little. Or relaxing your face. Or taking a breath. Do what feels right for you. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. STORY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Every time I go back to Athens, I return to the tiny street where I grew up. It was just the three of us, my mother, my little sister Agapi, and me. My parents had separated, so we all shared this cramped one-bedroom apartment across the street from a fire station in the middle of the city. But my mother made it seem grand and full of life. And she’d do this through cooking -- constant, non-stop cooking. For my mother, food was life and life was food. If you were eating, it meant you were alive. Food was a kind of love offering, and she was a high priestess. Her ceremonial robes were a house dress and a food-smeared apron. Our lives in Athens revolved around the kitchen table. Agapi and I would hurry home from school, and even before we’d throw open the door, we’d be coaxed in down the hallway with the smells of dill, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, and fennel. These smells were her emissaries. She sent them to greet us even before she could emerge from the kitchen and give us a hug. With her cooking, she created a micro-climate of her own that paid no mind to the outside world. Then we’d throw down our school bags and descend on the kitchen table. We’d sit at that table for hours. Eating, talking, doing homework, talking over problems from school, problems from life, and eating some more. And then finally my mother would bring out the thing we loved the most: walnuts and honey. That’s how we’d end each meal, drunk on Greek honey. GUNATILLAKE: From your own childhood, is there a dish or type of food that particularly evokes good memories? Take a moment to bring it to mind. And feel free to smile. Can you picture the food and the people or the place you most associate with it? HUFFINGTON: I remember one particular day, I see a magazine on my way home from school. The cover is a photo of Cambridge University in England. Now, I’d never been to England. In fact, I’d never been anywhere outside of Greece. But that photo catches my eye. It stops me. I get home, fly through the doorway to be greeted by the aroma of my favorite dish, artichokes in a creamy dill sauce. There were other assorted dishes there, too -- spanakopita, hummus, eggplants — those were always around. They got changed regularly, but you never really saw it, they were just always there. So I run in, throw my bag down, open the magazine and spread it out on the table. “Mommy, look at this.” “What is it, honey?” she says. “It’s Cambridge,” I say. “it’s in England.” “I know that,” my mother replies. “But why are you showing it to me?” “Because I want to go there.” “You mean you want to visit there?” “No, I want to go to university there. I love it and that’s where I want to go to school.” I’m probably more surprised than my mother to hear this come out of my mouth. The photo had touched something deep inside me, something I hadn’t really articulated to myself at the time. It was the desire to open up new possibilities, and above all to learn, learn, learn. I loved school and I loved learning – about languages, about history, about other places. Learning, for me, was what food was for my mother. To learn is to be alive. And Cambridge seemed liked the center of the learning universe. By the time I make my proclamation, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else in the world. Even if it means leaving this love-filled room, and the very table I’d put the magazine down on. So I look up at my mother, not knowing what she’s going to say. She’d never been anything but supportive, but what I’d just said was ridiculous. Teenagers want a lot of things they can’t have. But instead my mother says: “That’s amazing. It looks beautiful. Let’s see how we can get you there.” I’m stunned. Not because of her positive reaction – I should never have expected anything else --but because her taking the idea seriously stopped my giddy reverie and brought me back down to earth. Back to our tiny apartment in Athens. Now, there was one problem with my going to university in England – I didn’t speak English. “No problem,” my mother says. “I’m sure you can learn English quickly.” “Really?” I say. I’m amazed not by her confidence in my learning English, but to the whole thing, the whole crazy idea. “Sure. Maybe we can go visit, just to see what it's like. I’ll see if I can get us some cheap tickets." It’s probably a good thing that neither of us had any clue just how incredibly difficult it was going to be. That’s what her wall of unconditional love and support and optimism and artichokes and spanakopita did – it created an insulating barrier between me and the harsh outside world. A little hothouse where my naivete could slowly metamorphosize into something resembling confidence. Every day for the next several weeks, my mother did research. She never went to college, but she had street smarts. She never doubted that she could figure something out and make it happen through sheer determination. At every meal, she would give us updates on what she’d found out. “So, in order for you to get into Cambridge, you first have to take something called the ‘general certificates of education.’ Then you have to take a special entrance exam, and then a verbal exam.” “Wow,” I remember saying. “That seems like a lot. How are we ever going to do all that?” “Well, I also found out you can take your general certificates of education through the British Council.” “But I still don't speak English,” I say. “I also found this intensive class where you can start learning English,” she says. There was really nothing I could say. She’d figured it all out. She even looked into how to apply for a scholarship. Sure it was all daunting, and there was a lot of red tape and forms to fill out. But my mother could turn anything into a big adventure. My first step into the world outside of Greece was no exception. But the most important thing my mother did for me wasn’t all the research and the planning. And it wasn’t even the confidence she had in me. It was the sense that even if I didn't get in, that that would be okay, too. She didn’t get wrapped up in any particular outcome. We’d just be on to the next adventure. That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? So then it came time to visit Cambridge. My mother got us both tickets – of course she wheedled some cheap seats somehow. And I remember those seats because they didn’t recline... at all. I’d never flown before, but it was fine, because, who knows, maybe Cambridge required extra-rigid posture to keep my mind properly attuned. From the airport, we went straight to London. Of course, it was pouring rain. From there, we took the train to Cambridge. It continued to pour all the way. To the locals it was probably a gray, dreary day, but to me it seemed lush and sultry and green. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? A young Arianna seeing through the greyness of the English weather, her mind full of wonder and delight as she explores this famous old university with its striking architecture and inviting lawns. HUFFINGTON: And then finally we were there. It was hard to believe. In most cases, as I’ve learned, a place rarely lives up to what it looks like in a travel brochure. So even on this wet, gray day, it was so much more vivid than I’d imagined. Building after building. There were students all over the place. Cambridge students. Who spoke perfect English. It was thrilling, but also intimidating. Which my mother sensed. “Well, here we are,” she says, as if we’d just arrived at our local grocery store. “Let’s go.” The day itself was a bit of a blur. Even though I wanted to major in economics, we didn’t go visit the economics department. Nor did we go to the admissions office, which might have been the obvious thing to do. We didn’t even talk to anybody. We just walked around Cambridge. All day. Two Greek women who barely spoke English. Like spies doing reconnaissance. But I think what we were really doing was just walking around the place until it felt natural for me to be there. It was a kind of in-person visualization. I’m walking around just like the real students are. In the same buildings. Nothing bad is happening. Nobody is reacting. If I got in, this is what I’d be doing. Maybe it really is possible. GUNATILLAKE: How does the idea of an in-person visualisation sound to you? Arianna explored what it would be like to be her future self by walking around Cambridge as if she were a student there, not a visitor. Are there any experiences for you that you would want to become real? What would your in-person visualisation look like? And the more we walked, the more I loved it. I thought it was gorgeous, the colleges, the libraries, the river. By the end of the day it felt oddly familiar and at the same time ancient. It all reeked of history. A history I ached to be a part of. It was overwhelming, the sort of place that could take over your life. Then we took the train right back to London, went straight to the airport, and took the flight back to Athens. Our seats reclined this time. Did they know I’d been to Cambridge? Reclining seats seemed like something that would be normal for Cambridge students. Maybe it was a cosmic message of some kind. On the way back, we hatched the final part of our plan. Or at least my mother did. The plan was that I would come back to London after taking my General Certificate of Education to prepare for my entrance exam and continue to study English. Around people who actually spoke English. And after all that was done and the entrance exams were taken, there wasn’t much left to do but wait. But I wasn’t riddled with anxiety. And that was because of my mother. Life was still going on, and would go on, one way or another. We weren’t waiting for life to begin, this was life. And then the day came. A telegram arrived. It’s waiting for me when I get home from school. My mother had put it on the table and motioned to it nonchalantly. I tear it open. “Accepted” and granted an exhibition - which is a form of scholarship. I got in. I can’t believe it. It’s just a piece of paper, but it seems more unreal than our actual visit had been. My mother smiles and then hugs me. But she isn’t jumping up and down, as I am inside. Just as she wouldn’t love me any less if I’d gotten rejected, she also couldn’t love me more just because I’d gotten accepted. That’s what allowed me to reach what really should have been an unattainable goal. It wasn’t a journey filled with anxiety and fear. It was an adventure. One always served, like your favorite dish, with unconditional love. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Arianna’s story. In just a moment, I’ll guide you through a closing meditation. After that, I’ll share a micro-step that you can take into your day, inspired by the mindfulness practices of our sponsor, Salesforce. CLOSING MEDITATION GUNATILLAKE: Of all the themes in Arianna’s story, the one that stands out the most - for me - is that of adventure. With her sudden calling to study at Cambridge, she embarks on a series of challenges, all of which she overcomes to finally win her prize. And by loving the adventure, and being loved through the adventure, she’s able to complete her journey without anxiety or fear. I often think about my own meditation practice, and meditation in general as an adventure or a journey. However long you’ve been practising, there are always ups and downs - times of clarity and even exhilaration, often shortly followed by times of wondering why you’re even bothering to do it in the first place. And back again. But what keeps me going is the process itself, for whatever results come about in the long-term, there’s an intrinsic delight and no small amount of wisdom that comes from just doing the practice and sticking with it. And the same applies for a single meditation session as it does for a whole lifetime of practice. Just being on an adventure can be reward enough. So let’s go on one. However your body is right now, this is the vessel we’re going in. So whether you’re sitting down, or walking, standing or lying, do what you need to to embody the qualities you want to express - openness, steadiness, courage. With your mind relaxed, ask yourself the question ‘what’s my next thought going to be?’ and then just wait for it. And when the thought appears, catch it with your awareness. And when you’ve done that just reset, relax and start watching again, watching for the next thought to arise. Alert and ready. What the content of the thought is, isn’t that important. What matters is your ability to catch it. That’s what we’re most interested in. While doing this technique, as with all adventures you’ll likely meet some challenges. Distraction as you get caught into a train of thought or a daydream. Doubt as to whether you’re doing it right. Aversion to the idea of doing it at all. These are all welcome, just characters in your adventure, here to help you come back to your intention and to try again. So let’s try again. Watching your mind for the next thought to appear. And catching it when it does. Doing this just for a minute or so, you’ll have failures and successes. Sometimes you’ll have a nice bright awareness, illuminating what’s happening in your mind in real time. And sometimes doing this technique, it might be a bit foggy and you’ll feel like you’ve not discovered a single thing about the habits and patterns of your inner life. But just like Arianna’s mother, part of you knows that the thing that matters most isn’t the results - they’ll come in time - what matters most is the adventure itself.
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Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of 15 books, including the recent bestsellers "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time." In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to and cited media brands on the web. In August 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.
From the closing meditation
Arianna Huffington
About Arianna Huffington
Life and love and the moment
Clarity
change
Openness
change
ARianna'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Arianna Huffington
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ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? STORY INTRODUCTION ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Arianna Huffington grew up in an unassuming one-bedroom apartment above the bustling streets of Athens, Greece. What she lacked in material things, she regained many times over in the rich home her mother created for her and her sister. There, at their kitchen table, Arianna’s spirit of adventure was born. And it was there that her mother taught her the universal wisdom of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Before I hand over to Arianna, let’s see if we can embody a sense of alertness. Soon you’re going to hear about a moment, a period of time which was to change the course of her life. So let’s get ready to meet that story with brightness, curiosity, and attention. For you that might mean straightening out your body a little. Or relaxing your face. Or taking a breath. Do what feels right for you. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. STORY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Every time I go back to Athens, I return to the tiny street where I grew up. It was just the three of us, my mother, my little sister Agapi, and me. My parents had separated, so we all shared this cramped one-bedroom apartment across the street from a fire station in the middle of the city. But my mother made it seem grand and full of life. And she’d do this through cooking -- constant, non-stop cooking. For my mother, food was life and life was food. If you were eating, it meant you were alive. Food was a kind of love offering, and she was a high priestess. Her ceremonial robes were a house dress and a food-smeared apron. Our lives in Athens revolved around the kitchen table. Agapi and I would hurry home from school, and even before we’d throw open the door, we’d be coaxed in down the hallway with the smells of dill, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, and fennel. These smells were her emissaries. She sent them to greet us even before she could emerge from the kitchen and give us a hug. With her cooking, she created a micro-climate of her own that paid no mind to the outside world. Then we’d throw down our school bags and descend on the kitchen table. We’d sit at that table for hours. Eating, talking, doing homework, talking over problems from school, problems from life, and eating some more. And then finally my mother would bring out the thing we loved the most: walnuts and honey. That’s how we’d end each meal, drunk on Greek honey. GUNATILLAKE: From your own childhood, is there a dish or type of food that particularly evokes good memories? Take a moment to bring it to mind. And feel free to smile. Can you picture the food and the people or the place you most associate with it? HUFFINGTON: I remember one particular day, I see a magazine on my way home from school. The cover is a photo of Cambridge University in England. Now, I’d never been to England. In fact, I’d never been anywhere outside of Greece. But that photo catches my eye. It stops me. I get home, fly through the doorway to be greeted by the aroma of my favorite dish, artichokes in a creamy dill sauce. There were other assorted dishes there, too -- spanakopita, hummus, eggplants — those were always around. They got changed regularly, but you never really saw it, they were just always there. So I run in, throw my bag down, open the magazine and spread it out on the table. “Mommy, look at this.” “What is it, honey?” she says. “It’s Cambridge,” I say. “it’s in England.” “I know that,” my mother replies. “But why are you showing it to me?” “Because I want to go there.” “You mean you want to visit there?” “No, I want to go to university there. I love it and that’s where I want to go to school.” I’m probably more surprised than my mother to hear this come out of my mouth. The photo had touched something deep inside me, something I hadn’t really articulated to myself at the time. It was the desire to open up new possibilities, and above all to learn, learn, learn. I loved school and I loved learning – about languages, about history, about other places. Learning, for me, was what food was for my mother. To learn is to be alive. And Cambridge seemed liked the center of the learning universe. By the time I make my proclamation, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else in the world. Even if it means leaving this love-filled room, and the very table I’d put the magazine down on. So I look up at my mother, not knowing what she’s going to say. She’d never been anything but supportive, but what I’d just said was ridiculous. Teenagers want a lot of things they can’t have. But instead my mother says: “That’s amazing. It looks beautiful. Let’s see how we can get you there.” I’m stunned. Not because of her positive reaction – I should never have expected anything else --but because her taking the idea seriously stopped my giddy reverie and brought me back down to earth. Back to our tiny apartment in Athens. Now, there was one problem with my going to university in England – I didn’t speak English. “No problem,” my mother says. “I’m sure you can learn English quickly.” “Really?” I say. I’m amazed not by her confidence in my learning English, but to the whole thing, the whole crazy idea. “Sure. Maybe we can go visit, just to see what it's like. I’ll see if I can get us some cheap tickets." It’s probably a good thing that neither of us had any clue just how incredibly difficult it was going to be. That’s what her wall of unconditional love and support and optimism and artichokes and spanakopita did – it created an insulating barrier between me and the harsh outside world. A little hothouse where my naivete could slowly metamorphosize into something resembling confidence. Every day for the next several weeks, my mother did research. She never went to college, but she had street smarts. She never doubted that she could figure something out and make it happen through sheer determination. At every meal, she would give us updates on what she’d found out. “So, in order for you to get into Cambridge, you first have to take something called the ‘general certificates of education.’ Then you have to take a special entrance exam, and then a verbal exam.” “Wow,” I remember saying. “That seems like a lot. How are we ever going to do all that?” “Well, I also found out you can take your general certificates of education through the British Council.” “But I still don't speak English,” I say. “I also found this intensive class where you can start learning English,” she says. There was really nothing I could say. She’d figured it all out. She even looked into how to apply for a scholarship. Sure it was all daunting, and there was a lot of red tape and forms to fill out. But my mother could turn anything into a big adventure. My first step into the world outside of Greece was no exception. But the most important thing my mother did for me wasn’t all the research and the planning. And it wasn’t even the confidence she had in me. It was the sense that even if I didn't get in, that that would be okay, too. She didn’t get wrapped up in any particular outcome. We’d just be on to the next adventure. That’s what kept me going – her conviction that failure doesn’t matter made it easier for me to succeed. There was no Plan B lurking on the edge of my consciousness, distracting me, calling to me. Because life and love and the moment were Plan A and we’d always have those, and so why would you ever need anything else? So then it came time to visit Cambridge. My mother got us both tickets – of course she wheedled some cheap seats somehow. And I remember those seats because they didn’t recline... at all. I’d never flown before, but it was fine, because, who knows, maybe Cambridge required extra-rigid posture to keep my mind properly attuned. From the airport, we went straight to London. Of course, it was pouring rain. From there, we took the train to Cambridge. It continued to pour all the way. To the locals it was probably a gray, dreary day, but to me it seemed lush and sultry and green. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? A young Arianna seeing through the greyness of the English weather, her mind full of wonder and delight as she explores this famous old university with its striking architecture and inviting lawns. HUFFINGTON: And then finally we were there. It was hard to believe. In most cases, as I’ve learned, a place rarely lives up to what it looks like in a travel brochure. So even on this wet, gray day, it was so much more vivid than I’d imagined. Building after building. There were students all over the place. Cambridge students. Who spoke perfect English. It was thrilling, but also intimidating. Which my mother sensed. “Well, here we are,” she says, as if we’d just arrived at our local grocery store. “Let’s go.” The day itself was a bit of a blur. Even though I wanted to major in economics, we didn’t go visit the economics department. Nor did we go to the admissions office, which might have been the obvious thing to do. We didn’t even talk to anybody. We just walked around Cambridge. All day. Two Greek women who barely spoke English. Like spies doing reconnaissance. But I think what we were really doing was just walking around the place until it felt natural for me to be there. It was a kind of in-person visualization. I’m walking around just like the real students are. In the same buildings. Nothing bad is happening. Nobody is reacting. If I got in, this is what I’d be doing. Maybe it really is possible. GUNATILLAKE: How does the idea of an in-person visualisation sound to you? Arianna explored what it would be like to be her future self by walking around Cambridge as if she were a student there, not a visitor. Are there any experiences for you that you would want to become real? What would your in-person visualisation look like? And the more we walked, the more I loved it. I thought it was gorgeous, the colleges, the libraries, the river. By the end of the day it felt oddly familiar and at the same time ancient. It all reeked of history. A history I ached to be a part of. It was overwhelming, the sort of place that could take over your life. Then we took the train right back to London, went straight to the airport, and took the flight back to Athens. Our seats reclined this time. Did they know I’d been to Cambridge? Reclining seats seemed like something that would be normal for Cambridge students. Maybe it was a cosmic message of some kind. On the way back, we hatched the final part of our plan. Or at least my mother did. The plan was that I would come back to London after taking my General Certificate of Education to prepare for my entrance exam and continue to study English. Around people who actually spoke English. And after all that was done and the entrance exams were taken, there wasn’t much left to do but wait. But I wasn’t riddled with anxiety. And that was because of my mother. Life was still going on, and would go on, one way or another. We weren’t waiting for life to begin, this was life. And then the day came. A telegram arrived. It’s waiting for me when I get home from school. My mother had put it on the table and motioned to it nonchalantly. I tear it open. “Accepted” and granted an exhibition - which is a form of scholarship. I got in. I can’t believe it. It’s just a piece of paper, but it seems more unreal than our actual visit had been. My mother smiles and then hugs me. But she isn’t jumping up and down, as I am inside. Just as she wouldn’t love me any less if I’d gotten rejected, she also couldn’t love me more just because I’d gotten accepted. That’s what allowed me to reach what really should have been an unattainable goal. It wasn’t a journey filled with anxiety and fear. It was an adventure. One always served, like your favorite dish, with unconditional love. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Arianna’s story. In just a moment, I’ll guide you through a closing meditation. After that, I’ll share a micro-step that you can take into your day, inspired by the mindfulness practices of our sponsor, Salesforce. CLOSING MEDITATION GUNATILLAKE: Of all the themes in Arianna’s story, the one that stands out the most - for me - is that of adventure. With her sudden calling to study at Cambridge, she embarks on a series of challenges, all of which she overcomes to finally win her prize. And by loving the adventure, and being loved through the adventure, she’s able to complete her journey without anxiety or fear. I often think about my own meditation practice, and meditation in general as an adventure or a journey. However long you’ve been practising, there are always ups and downs - times of clarity and even exhilaration, often shortly followed by times of wondering why you’re even bothering to do it in the first place. And back again. But what keeps me going is the process itself, for whatever results come about in the long-term, there’s an intrinsic delight and no small amount of wisdom that comes from just doing the practice and sticking with it. And the same applies for a single meditation session as it does for a whole lifetime of practice. Just being on an adventure can be reward enough. So let’s go on one. However your body is right now, this is the vessel we’re going in. So whether you’re sitting down, or walking, standing or lying, do what you need to to embody the qualities you want to express - openness, steadiness, courage. With your mind relaxed, ask yourself the question ‘what’s my next thought going to be?’ and then just wait for it. And when the thought appears, catch it with your awareness. And when you’ve done that just reset, relax and start watching again, watching for the next thought to arise. Alert and ready. What the content of the thought is, isn’t that important. What matters is your ability to catch it. That’s what we’re most interested in. While doing this technique, as with all adventures you’ll likely meet some challenges. Distraction as you get caught into a train of thought or a daydream. Doubt as to whether you’re doing it right. Aversion to the idea of doing it at all. These are all welcome, just characters in your adventure, here to help you come back to your intention and to try again. So let’s try again. Watching your mind for the next thought to appear. And catching it when it does. Doing this just for a minute or so, you’ll have failures and successes. Sometimes you’ll have a nice bright awareness, illuminating what’s happening in your mind in real time. And sometimes doing this technique, it might be a bit foggy and you’ll feel like you’ve not discovered a single thing about the habits and patterns of your inner life. But just like Arianna’s mother, part of you knows that the thing that matters most isn’t the results - they’ll come in time - what matters most is the adventure itself.
“Of all the themes in Arianna’s story, the one that stands out the most - for me - is that of adventure. With her sudden calling to study at Cambridge, she embarks on a series of challenges, all of which she overcomes to finally win her prize. And by loving the adventure, and being loved through the adventure, she’s able to complete her journey without anxiety or fear.”
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Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of 15 books, including the recent bestsellers "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time." In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to and cited media brands on the web. In August 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.
Episode Transcript
Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books. Her legendary career as an entrepreneur and author began with one big, fearless leap into the unknown: her decision to leave her childhood home in Greece and—without knowing a word of English—go to school at Cambridge. And that leap begins with this story, a testament to her mother's warmth, determination and love for her daughter. In telling this story, she says: "I want to honor not only the wisdom of my mother, but the wisdom of parents everywhere."
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books. Her legendary career as an entrepreneur and author began with one big, fearless leap into the unknown: her decision to leave her childhood home in Greece and—without knowing a word of English—go to school at Cambridge. And that leap begins with this story, a testament to her mother's warmth, determination and love for her daughter. In telling this story, she says: "I want to honor not only the wisdom of my mother, but the wisdom of parents everywhere."
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– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
From the closing meditation
Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Arianna Huffington takes us on her journey from Athens to Cambridge, and shares a lesson she learned from her mother of embracing life’s journey without being attached to the outcome.
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– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
As the Global Creative Director at Apple Music, Larry Jackson has signed deals with Drake, Frank Ocean, Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd and many others. He helped launch Apple Music, the fastest-growing entertainment subscription service to date; for the past three years, Billboard has ranked him on its Power 100. Previously, working with Clive Davis at RCA (where he was head of A&R and president of Arista Records), he produced albums for Whitney Houston and won a Grammy for Jennifer Hudson's debut album. Joining Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, he signed Lana Del Rey and became the Head of Content for Beats Music — all while managing Kanye West.
Larry Jackson
LARRY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
LARRY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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DISCOVERY
DISCOVERY
Larry Jackson
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Larry jackson
To visualize... and then make it so
As the Global Creative Director at Apple Music, Larry Jackson has signed deals with Drake, Frank Ocean, Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd and many others. He helped launch Apple Music, the fastest-growing entertainment subscription service to date; for the past three years, Billboard has ranked him on its Power 100. Previously, working with Clive Davis at RCA (where he was head of A&R and president of Arista Records), he produced albums for Whitney Houston and won a Grammy for Jennifer Hudson's debut album. Joining Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, he signed Lana Del Rey and became the Head of Content for Beats Music — all while managing Kanye West.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Larry Jackson
Arianna Huffington
"No matter how you approach meditation, a good way of understanding what it's all about is that it's about growing qualities. Qualities of mind and qualities of heart. Concentration, kindness, self-awareness, balance in times of difficult and challenge — they're all qualities that we can manifest in ourselves. And the best way to do that is not to imagine them in our future but to actually realise them in our present. So if you dream of being an amazing kind, compassionate person, but that feels far away, the way to get there is by being kind now, in whatever way you can."
LARRY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
LARRY JACKSON: It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Behind every great artist there are all sorts of people whose own dedication and creativity enable the stars to be the stars. Larry Jackson is one of those people. From his start in the music industry at the age of 11 to his current role as Global Creative Director at Apple Music, there aren’t many people who know more about how great music is made than Larry. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance to enhance your experience as you listen. I hope these prompts will be helpful to you. And let’s take a moment now to settle in before we hear from Larry. Letting whatever thoughts and feelings are around be around, letting them be here. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. JACKSON: I’m sitting in a cramped, hole-in-the-wall recording studio in Tampa. I await the arrival of a vocal powerhouse. She’s coming in to record a new song for her upcoming album. I’ve spent a large part of my professional life in state-of-the-art recording studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, Johannesburg, Paris. But our location today is pretty nondescript from the outside – and frankly isn’t much better when you get inside its control room. I’ve arrived early. An hour and a half later, in walks Jennifer Hudson – and she’s not alone. Two young Pomeranians are with her. I’d met one of them before. Its name is Oscar. But the other one, who I don’t recognize at all, is new. Jennifer introduces me to her second dog, which she’s named... Grammy. The pun and deliberacy have gone completely over my head. I ask her with a clueless naiveté why she’s chosen those two particular names, Oscar and Grammy. Very matter of factly, she says: “Well, I won an Oscar already, and now we about to win a Grammy, ain’t we?!” I feel my brow begin to sweat. My body stiffens. And I laugh uncontrollably at what’s being implied. The studio starts to feel even smaller and shabbier than it is. You see, I’m her producer. I signed Jennifer Hudson earlier that year. I’m 27. The stakes are high; and the pressure is palpable. Jennifer’s recording contract had been signed not long after she had captured the country’s heart as a standout contestant on “American Idol”, and right before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the blockbuster movie, “Dreamgirls”. In my career, I’ve had the great fortune to work with so many incredible artists, ranging from Whitney Houston to Chicago rapper Chief Keef to the national treasure Aretha Franklin, and many more. I’ve forged trusting relationships with the best songwriters in the business as well. So when I started working with Jennifer, I think, okay, no problem. She’s got a remarkably unique vocal prowess and power, so the potential for a hit album is easy to visualize for me. Between her insane talent, the momentum around “Dreamgirls”, and my relationships with the creative community, it feels like this should crystallize quickly. But between that initial optimism and this moment in Tampa, it’s almost been a year and a half of toil and sporadic fruitfulness. Jennifer and I have travelled to London to record with Timbaland. We’ve spent time in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and a few other cities trying to decode this creative Rubik’s cube. Yet we still don’t have a first single to unlock her debut album’s potential. Though I’ll never admit it, it feels like this is a languishing process with no foreseeable end in sight. It feels like we have decent stuff but in many ways we’re nowhere… well actually in this tiny studio, in Tampa, with me, Jennifer, and a yappy Pomeranian who she had the bold confidence to name Grammy. We don’t leave that Florida recording session with our first single. But instead, I have a feeling of a heightened sense of pressure to finish this album – and not leave Oscar as the only one of those dogs who’s lived up to its name. In the meantime, though, a story had just come out in the press that her debut album, which I’m executive producing, had been scrapped by Clive Davis over creative differences in terms of its direction. While the story was a bit of an exaggeration, the struggle that I was experiencing was a very real and arduous challenge. I was feeling the heat and feeling quite daunted. While in London two weeks later, I’m at The Dorchester Hotel struggling deeply with jet lag at 4 am and decide to catch up on some overdue demo listening. At the top of the stack is the proposed demo for Jennifer’s song, titled “Spotlight” written by Ne Yo. I generally pride myself on being a one-listen creative executive. I feel if a song has hit potential after hearing the first verse and the first chorus. After countless days and nights of endlessly listening for needles in haystacks, I’ve honed this intuitive skill to a soulful science. And immediately when I hear this one, I know we have it. The track has the same bark as Aretha’s classic “Respect” and the same bite as her anthemic “Think”. He nailed it. I listen to the demo non-stop until the sun comes up. I can’t believe it. This is finally our first single. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? Can you feel the energy and excitement that Larry’s feeling in this moment? Feel the sensation of finally finding what you’ve been looking for. JACKSON: And just like that, I somehow got all the colors to line up on our creative Rubik’s cube. I see it clearly. It unlocks everything. It unlocks the power of that album. Unlocks my waning confidence. Unlocks the future path of the project. Fast forward to September of that year: The song becomes a number one R&B single in the U.S. February rolls around and it’s the 2009 Grammy Awards – no less than a year after my first amusing encounter with Grammy, the moody, mercurial Pomeranian. We arrive late but right on time. Within moments of our taking our seats, Whitney Houston comes out to present the Grammy award for the year’s Best R&B Album. It’s been a great year in this genre and the competition is stiff and tough, to say the least. I’m 28 years old. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on the floor at the Grammys, where all of the decorated nominees are also seated. As it relates to Best Album categories, if you serve as album producer for the project, you win an award alongside with the artist. So as co-album producers, Clive Davis and I stand to take one home respectively that night as well. I’m excited yet nervous. Whitney opens up the envelope and announces the winner, it’s JENNIFER! I can’t believe it. As I stand to applaud Jennifer as she takes the stage to accept the award, all I can think of at that moment is Grammy the Pomeranian. She was right! It’s a celebratory night. The next morning it all hits me what an important moment it is for me personally. GUNATILLAKE: Can you recall an event in your life where you received some good news about a hard-won accomplishment? Can you remember what the space you were in at that time was like? Go there. JACKSON: My childhood helps me understand why the creative journey with Jennifer is one of my life’s turning points. At 10 years old, I was really obsessed with pop culture and our local radio station in San Francisco, 106 KMEL. I used my family’s black touch-tone phone in the kitchen to call radio contests all the time. It didn’t have any fancy features – no redial, no frills, nothing like that. And I was always punching in the numbers as fast as I could with my nimble little fingers as I attempted to be caller 10, caller 106, or whatever number was required to win. I’d push the buttons as fast as I could, and if I heard a busy signal, I’d hang up and start punching those numbers over and over again. I became so fast though and so proficient, so good at winning these contests that they finally said, “Kid, you can’t win anymore but we’d love to have you down to the station sometime soon for a tour and a hang.” That moment afforded me a unique opportunity to put my foot in the door. And slowly but surely I became a fixture there. At 11, my dad buys me my first two turntables and a microphone from Radio Shack. I amusingly created my first DJ booth in my bedroom. Practice, practice, practice. The next two years I was an apprentice at the radio station and practicing in my off-time at home. At 14, I’m a full-time intern now and a board op at KMEL, which by the way, is market number four in the entire country. By 16, I’m hired as the music director of the station, which has fallen to eighth place in the market. By age 17, I’m expelled from high school because I’m spread too thin across academics and work. At age 19, we triumphantly take the station back to its number one ratings position in the market – and then I get a call. The call is from legendary music impresario Clive Davis. If I had to explain it, on the Mount Rushmore of the music business, Clive Davis has got to be someone like George Washington. A legendary New York-based record producer who worked with countless artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Aerosmith to Alicia Keys to Bruce Springsteen and Notorious B.I.G. Clive says, “I hear you’ve got some of the best ears in radio! How about coming to New York for an interview. I’m starting a new record label. I think you’d be a great fit.” That phone call single handedly changes my life. From an early age, I’ve always made a lot of things happen for myself. But before I met Jennifer Hudson and, of course, Grammy the Pomeranian, I’d always been overly superstitious. I often thought that if I didn’t think something would happen, that it probably would happen. But I had it dead wrong. Jennifer showed me that the best way to make big things happen is to believe that they will so much that you name your tiny little dog after them to see them through. It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. The creative geniuses I work with show me the power of believing. They visualize and then they make it so. Even though I never went to college, I somehow beat the statistics for African-American men who don’t, and willed a life of pursuing my passion based on knowing that I’m supposed to be here. That I belong. All someone had to do was pass me the ball – or rather all I had to do was get on the court and fight tenaciously for it. Manifestation wasn’t how I would have described it in my teens, but it’s clearly what it is. Seeing it blossom powerfully through the lens of another helped me understand how to better harness that power. All my life, I had been trying to visualize the future with my eyes closed. I only used my ears. Speak what you seek until you see what you say. That’s the creed, that’s the mantra, that’s the belief. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Larry’s story. While the idea of visualising future events in order to support their coming about is not so much a part of the mindfulness tradition, there is a related idea: manifesting qualities. No matter how you approach meditation, a good way of understanding what it’s all about is that it’s about growing qualities: qualities of mind and qualities of heart. Concentration, kindness, self-awareness, balance in times of difficulty and challenge – they’re all qualities we can manifest in ourselves. And the best way to do that is not to imagine them in our future but to actually realize them in our present. So if you dream of being an amazing, kind, compassionate person but that feels far away, the way to get there is by being kind now, in whatever way you can. If being calm under pressure or not being pushed around by your own negative thinking is the future you want to manifest, then see what you can do to be like that now. Steadiness, joy, sensitivity, presence with others – these are natural qualities we all have. And if we want to build them up, all we need to do is practice them, to work on those muscles, to reinforce those neural pathways. It’s not magic. It’s training. And we can do some now if you like. Letting your body be however it is. Encouraging relaxation. Relaxing any tension in your face, your hands, your belly. Letting your mind be however it is. Encouraging letting go. Watching any thoughts and ideas come up and drift away. No real need to get tangled up in them or give them any solidity. Breathing. Breathing. And let’s start with calm. We may tell ourselves the story that we’re not calm at all, that our minds are all over the place, flitting from one thing to another. Let go of any stories like that for now and let’s manifest calm. The calmest, most balanced person in the world is only ever just calm in the moment. So let’s be that person and be calm in this moment. Letting your awareness drop into the sensations where you body contacts the ground. Simple, steady. Watching any thoughts that come up on the screen of the mind. Watching them, knowing them, but not getting caught up in them. Manifesting calm. Manifesting calm by being calm. Now let’s try sensitivity. The quality of moving through life with subtlety and depth. The most sensitive person is sensitive now. So let’s be that person. Starting by switching through our senses, noticing what’s most obvious through each of our sense doors. Noticing the physical sense, what is most prominent. Noticing sight, any objects which come to your attention. Noticing hearing, sounds that arise and sounds that fall away. Noticing tastes and smell if there’s anything here, or if it’s quite neutral. Noticing thinking, watching thoughts and leaving them alone. Another aspect of sensitivity is subtlety. So as before, asking yourself the question: What is the furthest sound you can hear right now? Letting your mind be open. And subtle. And sensitive. We all have these qualities within us. We just have to manifest them. To make them real. But ultimately you just have to be that person, moment by moment. Starting now.
Life and love and the moment
To visualize... and then make it so
CREATIVITY
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
Life and love and the moment
LARRY JACKSON: It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Behind every great artist there are all sorts of people whose own dedication and creativity enable the stars to be the stars. Larry Jackson is one of those people. From his start in the music industry at the age of 11 to his current role as Global Creative Director at Apple Music, there aren’t many people who know more about how great music is made than Larry. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance to enhance your experience as you listen. I hope these prompts will be helpful to you. And let’s take a moment now to settle in before we hear from Larry. Letting whatever thoughts and feelings are around be around, letting them be here. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. JACKSON: I’m sitting in a cramped, hole-in-the-wall recording studio in Tampa. I await the arrival of a vocal powerhouse. She’s coming in to record a new song for her upcoming album. I’ve spent a large part of my professional life in state-of-the-art recording studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, Johannesburg, Paris. But our location today is pretty nondescript from the outside – and frankly isn’t much better when you get inside its control room. I’ve arrived early. An hour and a half later, in walks Jennifer Hudson – and she’s not alone. Two young Pomeranians are with her. I’d met one of them before. Its name is Oscar. But the other one, who I don’t recognize at all, is new. Jennifer introduces me to her second dog, which she’s named... Grammy. The pun and deliberacy have gone completely over my head. I ask her with a clueless naiveté why she’s chosen those two particular names, Oscar and Grammy. Very matter of factly, she says: “Well, I won an Oscar already, and now we about to win a Grammy, ain’t we?!” I feel my brow begin to sweat. My body stiffens. And I laugh uncontrollably at what’s being implied. The studio starts to feel even smaller and shabbier than it is. You see, I’m her producer. I signed Jennifer Hudson earlier that year. I’m 27. The stakes are high; and the pressure is palpable. Jennifer’s recording contract had been signed not long after she had captured the country’s heart as a standout contestant on “American Idol”, and right before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the blockbuster movie, “Dreamgirls”. In my career, I’ve had the great fortune to work with so many incredible artists, ranging from Whitney Houston to Chicago rapper Chief Keef to the national treasure Aretha Franklin, and many more. I’ve forged trusting relationships with the best songwriters in the business as well. So when I started working with Jennifer, I think, okay, no problem. She’s got a remarkably unique vocal prowess and power, so the potential for a hit album is easy to visualize for me. Between her insane talent, the momentum around “Dreamgirls”, and my relationships with the creative community, it feels like this should crystallize quickly. But between that initial optimism and this moment in Tampa, it’s almost been a year and a half of toil and sporadic fruitfulness. Jennifer and I have travelled to London to record with Timbaland. We’ve spent time in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and a few other cities trying to decode this creative Rubik’s cube. Yet we still don’t have a first single to unlock her debut album’s potential. Though I’ll never admit it, it feels like this is a languishing process with no foreseeable end in sight. It feels like we have decent stuff but in many ways we’re nowhere… well actually in this tiny studio, in Tampa, with me, Jennifer, and a yappy Pomeranian who she had the bold confidence to name Grammy. We don’t leave that Florida recording session with our first single. But instead, I have a feeling of a heightened sense of pressure to finish this album – and not leave Oscar as the only one of those dogs who’s lived up to its name. In the meantime, though, a story had just come out in the press that her debut album, which I’m executive producing, had been scrapped by Clive Davis over creative differences in terms of its direction. While the story was a bit of an exaggeration, the struggle that I was experiencing was a very real and arduous challenge. I was feeling the heat and feeling quite daunted. While in London two weeks later, I’m at The Dorchester Hotel struggling deeply with jet lag at 4 am and decide to catch up on some overdue demo listening. At the top of the stack is the proposed demo for Jennifer’s song, titled “Spotlight” written by Ne Yo. I generally pride myself on being a one-listen creative executive. I feel if a song has hit potential after hearing the first verse and the first chorus. After countless days and nights of endlessly listening for needles in haystacks, I’ve honed this intuitive skill to a soulful science. And immediately when I hear this one, I know we have it. The track has the same bark as Aretha’s classic “Respect” and the same bite as her anthemic “Think”. He nailed it. I listen to the demo non-stop until the sun comes up. I can’t believe it. This is finally our first single. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? Can you feel the energy and excitement that Larry’s feeling in this moment? Feel the sensation of finally finding what you’ve been looking for. JACKSON: And just like that, I somehow got all the colors to line up on our creative Rubik’s cube. I see it clearly. It unlocks everything. It unlocks the power of that album. Unlocks my waning confidence. Unlocks the future path of the project. Fast forward to September of that year: The song becomes a number one R&B single in the U.S. February rolls around and it’s the 2009 Grammy Awards – no less than a year after my first amusing encounter with Grammy, the moody, mercurial Pomeranian. We arrive late but right on time. Within moments of our taking our seats, Whitney Houston comes out to present the Grammy award for the year’s Best R&B Album. It’s been a great year in this genre and the competition is stiff and tough, to say the least. I’m 28 years old. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on the floor at the Grammys, where all of the decorated nominees are also seated. As it relates to Best Album categories, if you serve as album producer for the project, you win an award alongside with the artist. So as co-album producers, Clive Davis and I stand to take one home respectively that night as well. I’m excited yet nervous. Whitney opens up the envelope and announces the winner, it’s JENNIFER! I can’t believe it. As I stand to applaud Jennifer as she takes the stage to accept the award, all I can think of at that moment is Grammy the Pomeranian. She was right! It’s a celebratory night. The next morning it all hits me what an important moment it is for me personally. GUNATILLAKE: Can you recall an event in your life where you received some good news about a hard-won accomplishment? Can you remember what the space you were in at that time was like? Go there. JACKSON: My childhood helps me understand why the creative journey with Jennifer is one of my life’s turning points. At 10 years old, I was really obsessed with pop culture and our local radio station in San Francisco, 106 KMEL. I used my family’s black touch-tone phone in the kitchen to call radio contests all the time. It didn’t have any fancy features – no redial, no frills, nothing like that. And I was always punching in the numbers as fast as I could with my nimble little fingers as I attempted to be caller 10, caller 106, or whatever number was required to win. I’d push the buttons as fast as I could, and if I heard a busy signal, I’d hang up and start punching those numbers over and over again. I became so fast though and so proficient, so good at winning these contests that they finally said, “Kid, you can’t win anymore but we’d love to have you down to the station sometime soon for a tour and a hang.” That moment afforded me a unique opportunity to put my foot in the door. And slowly but surely I became a fixture there. At 11, my dad buys me my first two turntables and a microphone from Radio Shack. I amusingly created my first DJ booth in my bedroom. Practice, practice, practice. The next two years I was an apprentice at the radio station and practicing in my off-time at home. At 14, I’m a full-time intern now and a board op at KMEL, which by the way, is market number four in the entire country. By 16, I’m hired as the music director of the station, which has fallen to eighth place in the market. By age 17, I’m expelled from high school because I’m spread too thin across academics and work. At age 19, we triumphantly take the station back to its number one ratings position in the market – and then I get a call. The call is from legendary music impresario Clive Davis. If I had to explain it, on the Mount Rushmore of the music business, Clive Davis has got to be someone like George Washington. A legendary New York-based record producer who worked with countless artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Aerosmith to Alicia Keys to Bruce Springsteen and Notorious B.I.G. Clive says, “I hear you’ve got some of the best ears in radio! How about coming to New York for an interview. I’m starting a new record label. I think you’d be a great fit.” That phone call single handedly changes my life. From an early age, I’ve always made a lot of things happen for myself. But before I met Jennifer Hudson and, of course, Grammy the Pomeranian, I’d always been overly superstitious. I often thought that if I didn’t think something would happen, that it probably would happen. But I had it dead wrong. Jennifer showed me that the best way to make big things happen is to believe that they will so much that you name your tiny little dog after them to see them through. It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. The creative geniuses I work with show me the power of believing. They visualize and then they make it so. Even though I never went to college, I somehow beat the statistics for African-American men who don’t, and willed a life of pursuing my passion based on knowing that I’m supposed to be here. That I belong. All someone had to do was pass me the ball – or rather all I had to do was get on the court and fight tenaciously for it. Manifestation wasn’t how I would have described it in my teens, but it’s clearly what it is. Seeing it blossom powerfully through the lens of another helped me understand how to better harness that power. All my life, I had been trying to visualize the future with my eyes closed. I only used my ears. Speak what you seek until you see what you say. That’s the creed, that’s the mantra, that’s the belief. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Larry’s story. While the idea of visualising future events in order to support their coming about is not so much a part of the mindfulness tradition, there is a related idea: manifesting qualities. No matter how you approach meditation, a good way of understanding what it’s all about is that it’s about growing qualities: qualities of mind and qualities of heart. Concentration, kindness, self-awareness, balance in times of difficulty and challenge – they’re all qualities we can manifest in ourselves. And the best way to do that is not to imagine them in our future but to actually realize them in our present. So if you dream of being an amazing, kind, compassionate person but that feels far away, the way to get there is by being kind now, in whatever way you can. If being calm under pressure or not being pushed around by your own negative thinking is the future you want to manifest, then see what you can do to be like that now. Steadiness, joy, sensitivity, presence with others – these are natural qualities we all have. And if we want to build them up, all we need to do is practice them, to work on those muscles, to reinforce those neural pathways. It’s not magic. It’s training. And we can do some now if you like. Letting your body be however it is. Encouraging relaxation. Relaxing any tension in your face, your hands, your belly. Letting your mind be however it is. Encouraging letting go. Watching any thoughts and ideas come up and drift away. No real need to get tangled up in them or give them any solidity. Breathing. Breathing. And let’s start with calm. We may tell ourselves the story that we’re not calm at all, that our minds are all over the place, flitting from one thing to another. Let go of any stories like that for now and let’s manifest calm. The calmest, most balanced person in the world is only ever just calm in the moment. So let’s be that person and be calm in this moment. Letting your awareness drop into the sensations where you body contacts the ground. Simple, steady. Watching any thoughts that come up on the screen of the mind. Watching them, knowing them, but not getting caught up in them. Manifesting calm. Manifesting calm by being calm. Now let’s try sensitivity. The quality of moving through life with subtlety and depth. The most sensitive person is sensitive now. So let’s be that person. Starting by switching through our senses, noticing what’s most obvious through each of our sense doors. Noticing the physical sense, what is most prominent. Noticing sight, any objects which come to your attention. Noticing hearing, sounds that arise and sounds that fall away. Noticing tastes and smell if there’s anything here, or if it’s quite neutral. Noticing thinking, watching thoughts and leaving them alone. Another aspect of sensitivity is subtlety. So as before, asking yourself the question: What is the furthest sound you can hear right now? Letting your mind be open. And subtle. And sensitive. We all have these qualities within us. We just have to manifest them. To make them real. But ultimately you just have to be that person, moment by moment. Starting now.
Episode Transcript
About Larry Jackson
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
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To visualize... and then make it so
From the closing meditation
About Larry Jackson
From the closing meditation
Life and love and the moment
Larry Jackson is the head of Apple Music and a legendary music producer. But despite his success, he felt he didn't really control his destiny. He's sharing his story of how he learned to visualize what he wanted and achieve it: "You can actually manifest your destiny. If you will it to be true, it can happen. And I want other people to believe that too."
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy thefreedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
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CREATIVITY
Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
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Arianna Huffington
CREATIVITY
As the Global Creative Director at Apple Music, Larry Jackson has signed deals with Drake, Frank Ocean, Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd and many others. He helped launch Apple Music, the fastest-growing entertainment subscription service to date; for the past three years, Billboard has ranked him on its Power 100. Previously, working with Clive Davis at RCA (where he was head of A&R and president of Arista Records), he produced albums for Whitney Houston and won a Grammy for Jennifer Hudson's debut album. Joining Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, he signed Lana Del Rey and became the Head of Content for Beats Music — all while managing Kanye West.
LARRY JACKSON
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LARRY JACKSON
Episode Transcript
Larry Jackson is the head of Apple Music and a legendary music producer. But despite his success, he felt he didn't really control his destiny. He's sharing his story of how he learned to visualize what he wanted and achieve it: "You can actually manifest your destiny. If you will it to be true, it can happen. And I want other people to believe that too."
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"No matter how you approach meditation, a good way of understanding what it's all about is that it's about growing qualities. Qualities of mind and qualities of heart. Concentration, kindness, self-awareness, balance in times of difficult and challenge — they're all qualities that we can manifest in ourselves. And the best way to do that is not to imagine them in our future but to actually realise them in our present. So if you dream of being an amazing kind, compassionate person, but that feels far away, the way to get there is by being kind now, in whatever way you can."
LARRY JACKSON: It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Behind every great artist there are all sorts of people whose own dedication and creativity enable the stars to be the stars. Larry Jackson is one of those people. From his start in the music industry at the age of 11 to his current role as Global Creative Director at Apple Music, there aren’t many people who know more about how great music is made than Larry. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance to enhance your experience as you listen. I hope these prompts will be helpful to you. And let’s take a moment now to settle in before we hear from Larry. Letting whatever thoughts and feelings are around be around, letting them be here. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. JACKSON: I’m sitting in a cramped, hole-in-the-wall recording studio in Tampa. I await the arrival of a vocal powerhouse. She’s coming in to record a new song for her upcoming album. I’ve spent a large part of my professional life in state-of-the-art recording studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, Johannesburg, Paris. But our location today is pretty nondescript from the outside – and frankly isn’t much better when you get inside its control room. I’ve arrived early. An hour and a half later, in walks Jennifer Hudson – and she’s not alone. Two young Pomeranians are with her. I’d met one of them before. Its name is Oscar. But the other one, who I don’t recognize at all, is new. Jennifer introduces me to her second dog, which she’s named... Grammy. The pun and deliberacy have gone completely over my head. I ask her with a clueless naiveté why she’s chosen those two particular names, Oscar and Grammy. Very matter of factly, she says: “Well, I won an Oscar already, and now we about to win a Grammy, ain’t we?!” I feel my brow begin to sweat. My body stiffens. And I laugh uncontrollably at what’s being implied. The studio starts to feel even smaller and shabbier than it is. You see, I’m her producer. I signed Jennifer Hudson earlier that year. I’m 27. The stakes are high; and the pressure is palpable. Jennifer’s recording contract had been signed not long after she had captured the country’s heart as a standout contestant on “American Idol”, and right before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the blockbuster movie, “Dreamgirls”. In my career, I’ve had the great fortune to work with so many incredible artists, ranging from Whitney Houston to Chicago rapper Chief Keef to the national treasure Aretha Franklin, and many more. I’ve forged trusting relationships with the best songwriters in the business as well. So when I started working with Jennifer, I think, okay, no problem. She’s got a remarkably unique vocal prowess and power, so the potential for a hit album is easy to visualize for me. Between her insane talent, the momentum around “Dreamgirls”, and my relationships with the creative community, it feels like this should crystallize quickly. But between that initial optimism and this moment in Tampa, it’s almost been a year and a half of toil and sporadic fruitfulness. Jennifer and I have travelled to London to record with Timbaland. We’ve spent time in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and a few other cities trying to decode this creative Rubik’s cube. Yet we still don’t have a first single to unlock her debut album’s potential. Though I’ll never admit it, it feels like this is a languishing process with no foreseeable end in sight. It feels like we have decent stuff but in many ways we’re nowhere… well actually in this tiny studio, in Tampa, with me, Jennifer, and a yappy Pomeranian who she had the bold confidence to name Grammy. We don’t leave that Florida recording session with our first single. But instead, I have a feeling of a heightened sense of pressure to finish this album – and not leave Oscar as the only one of those dogs who’s lived up to its name. In the meantime, though, a story had just come out in the press that her debut album, which I’m executive producing, had been scrapped by Clive Davis over creative differences in terms of its direction. While the story was a bit of an exaggeration, the struggle that I was experiencing was a very real and arduous challenge. I was feeling the heat and feeling quite daunted. While in London two weeks later, I’m at The Dorchester Hotel struggling deeply with jet lag at 4 am and decide to catch up on some overdue demo listening. At the top of the stack is the proposed demo for Jennifer’s song, titled “Spotlight” written by Ne Yo. I generally pride myself on being a one-listen creative executive. I feel if a song has hit potential after hearing the first verse and the first chorus. After countless days and nights of endlessly listening for needles in haystacks, I’ve honed this intuitive skill to a soulful science. And immediately when I hear this one, I know we have it. The track has the same bark as Aretha’s classic “Respect” and the same bite as her anthemic “Think”. He nailed it. I listen to the demo non-stop until the sun comes up. I can’t believe it. This is finally our first single. GUNATILLAKE: Can you picture the scene? Can you feel the energy and excitement that Larry’s feeling in this moment? Feel the sensation of finally finding what you’ve been looking for. JACKSON: And just like that, I somehow got all the colors to line up on our creative Rubik’s cube. I see it clearly. It unlocks everything. It unlocks the power of that album. Unlocks my waning confidence. Unlocks the future path of the project. Fast forward to September of that year: The song becomes a number one R&B single in the U.S. February rolls around and it’s the 2009 Grammy Awards – no less than a year after my first amusing encounter with Grammy, the moody, mercurial Pomeranian. We arrive late but right on time. Within moments of our taking our seats, Whitney Houston comes out to present the Grammy award for the year’s Best R&B Album. It’s been a great year in this genre and the competition is stiff and tough, to say the least. I’m 28 years old. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on the floor at the Grammys, where all of the decorated nominees are also seated. As it relates to Best Album categories, if you serve as album producer for the project, you win an award alongside with the artist. So as co-album producers, Clive Davis and I stand to take one home respectively that night as well. I’m excited yet nervous. Whitney opens up the envelope and announces the winner, it’s JENNIFER! I can’t believe it. As I stand to applaud Jennifer as she takes the stage to accept the award, all I can think of at that moment is Grammy the Pomeranian. She was right! It’s a celebratory night. The next morning it all hits me what an important moment it is for me personally. GUNATILLAKE: Can you recall an event in your life where you received some good news about a hard-won accomplishment? Can you remember what the space you were in at that time was like? Go there. JACKSON: My childhood helps me understand why the creative journey with Jennifer is one of my life’s turning points. At 10 years old, I was really obsessed with pop culture and our local radio station in San Francisco, 106 KMEL. I used my family’s black touch-tone phone in the kitchen to call radio contests all the time. It didn’t have any fancy features – no redial, no frills, nothing like that. And I was always punching in the numbers as fast as I could with my nimble little fingers as I attempted to be caller 10, caller 106, or whatever number was required to win. I’d push the buttons as fast as I could, and if I heard a busy signal, I’d hang up and start punching those numbers over and over again. I became so fast though and so proficient, so good at winning these contests that they finally said, “Kid, you can’t win anymore but we’d love to have you down to the station sometime soon for a tour and a hang.” That moment afforded me a unique opportunity to put my foot in the door. And slowly but surely I became a fixture there. At 11, my dad buys me my first two turntables and a microphone from Radio Shack. I amusingly created my first DJ booth in my bedroom. Practice, practice, practice. The next two years I was an apprentice at the radio station and practicing in my off-time at home. At 14, I’m a full-time intern now and a board op at KMEL, which by the way, is market number four in the entire country. By 16, I’m hired as the music director of the station, which has fallen to eighth place in the market. By age 17, I’m expelled from high school because I’m spread too thin across academics and work. At age 19, we triumphantly take the station back to its number one ratings position in the market – and then I get a call. The call is from legendary music impresario Clive Davis. If I had to explain it, on the Mount Rushmore of the music business, Clive Davis has got to be someone like George Washington. A legendary New York-based record producer who worked with countless artists ranging from Whitney Houston to Aerosmith to Alicia Keys to Bruce Springsteen and Notorious B.I.G. Clive says, “I hear you’ve got some of the best ears in radio! How about coming to New York for an interview. I’m starting a new record label. I think you’d be a great fit.” That phone call single handedly changes my life. From an early age, I’ve always made a lot of things happen for myself. But before I met Jennifer Hudson and, of course, Grammy the Pomeranian, I’d always been overly superstitious. I often thought that if I didn’t think something would happen, that it probably would happen. But I had it dead wrong. Jennifer showed me that the best way to make big things happen is to believe that they will so much that you name your tiny little dog after them to see them through. It’s funny, because my job as a music producer, an A&R executive, is to go out and find the best material – songs, songwriters, producers – and the best up-and-coming artists, and bring them together, and then will them into success. The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence. I’m literally in the business of manifesting, I suppose. Discovering and unearthing – and again, manifesting. The creative geniuses I work with show me the power of believing. They visualize and then they make it so. Even though I never went to college, I somehow beat the statistics for African-American men who don’t, and willed a life of pursuing my passion based on knowing that I’m supposed to be here. That I belong. All someone had to do was pass me the ball – or rather all I had to do was get on the court and fight tenaciously for it. Manifestation wasn’t how I would have described it in my teens, but it’s clearly what it is. Seeing it blossom powerfully through the lens of another helped me understand how to better harness that power. All my life, I had been trying to visualize the future with my eyes closed. I only used my ears. Speak what you seek until you see what you say. That’s the creed, that’s the mantra, that’s the belief. GUNATILLAKE: We’ve reached the end of Larry’s story. While the idea of visualising future events in order to support their coming about is not so much a part of the mindfulness tradition, there is a related idea: manifesting qualities. No matter how you approach meditation, a good way of understanding what it’s all about is that it’s about growing qualities: qualities of mind and qualities of heart. Concentration, kindness, self-awareness, balance in times of difficulty and challenge – they’re all qualities we can manifest in ourselves. And the best way to do that is not to imagine them in our future but to actually realize them in our present. So if you dream of being an amazing, kind, compassionate person but that feels far away, the way to get there is by being kind now, in whatever way you can. If being calm under pressure or not being pushed around by your own negative thinking is the future you want to manifest, then see what you can do to be like that now. Steadiness, joy, sensitivity, presence with others – these are natural qualities we all have. And if we want to build them up, all we need to do is practice them, to work on those muscles, to reinforce those neural pathways. It’s not magic. It’s training. And we can do some now if you like. Letting your body be however it is. Encouraging relaxation. Relaxing any tension in your face, your hands, your belly. Letting your mind be however it is. Encouraging letting go. Watching any thoughts and ideas come up and drift away. No real need to get tangled up in them or give them any solidity. Breathing. Breathing. And let’s start with calm. We may tell ourselves the story that we’re not calm at all, that our minds are all over the place, flitting from one thing to another. Let go of any stories like that for now and let’s manifest calm. The calmest, most balanced person in the world is only ever just calm in the moment. So let’s be that person and be calm in this moment. Letting your awareness drop into the sensations where you body contacts the ground. Simple, steady. Watching any thoughts that come up on the screen of the mind. Watching them, knowing them, but not getting caught up in them. Manifesting calm. Manifesting calm by being calm. Now let’s try sensitivity. The quality of moving through life with subtlety and depth. The most sensitive person is sensitive now. So let’s be that person. Starting by switching through our senses, noticing what’s most obvious through each of our sense doors. Noticing the physical sense, what is most prominent. Noticing sight, any objects which come to your attention. Noticing hearing, sounds that arise and sounds that fall away. Noticing tastes and smell if there’s anything here, or if it’s quite neutral. Noticing thinking, watching thoughts and leaving them alone. Another aspect of sensitivity is subtlety. So as before, asking yourself the question: What is the furthest sound you can hear right now? Letting your mind be open. And subtle. And sensitive. We all have these qualities within us. We just have to manifest them. To make them real. But ultimately you just have to be that person, moment by moment. Starting now.
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Arianna Huffington
Larry Jackson is the head of Apple Music and a legendary music producer. But despite his success, he felt he didn't really control his destiny. He's sharing his story of how he learned to visualize what he wanted and achieve it: "You can actually manifest your destiny. If you will it to be true, it can happen. And I want other people to believe that too."
CONNECTION
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Despite a lifetime of creative success, Apple Music's Global Creative Director, Larry Jackson, didn't believe in the power of manifestation — until he learned a valuable lesson from Jennifer Hudson and her Pomeranian, Grammy.
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From the closing meditation
DISCOVERY
About Larry Jackson
Episode Transcript
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy thefreedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
Arianna Huffington
From the closing meditation
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
CONNECTION
About Michelle Thaller
PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE
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Michelle Thaller
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Dr. Michelle Thaller is the Assistant Director of Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She has a bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Caltech, she became particularly interested in public outreach and science communication, and served as the public outreach lead for the Spitzer Space Telescope at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has also worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on strategic communications for all of NASA. Outside of her work, Michelle is one of the regular hosts of Discovery Science Channel’s “How the Universe Works” and "Space's Deepest Secrets." Michelle hosted the podcast “Orbital Path” for PRX, and appears on Big Think. She has received several high-profile awards for online science journalism and science leadership.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Arianna Huffington
Episode Transcript
MICHELLE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Arianna Huffington
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
As an astronomer and science communicator, Michelle Thaller thinks deeply about our place in the universe. In her Meditative Story, she explores the significance of a single human — you — in a universe so immense that your very existence is of no consequence ... yet of every consequence.
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
WONDER
Episode Transcript
About Michelle Thaller
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
As an astronomer and science communicator, Michelle Thaller thinks deeply about our place in the universe. In her Meditative Story, she explores the significance of a single human — you — in a universe so immense that your very existence is of no consequence ... yet of every consequence.
"The night-time sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully, the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even."
MICHELLE THALLER: Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve always loved looking up at a clear night sky full of stars, space, and questions. And few people know what’s up there better than astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller. In today’s episode, Michelle takes us up to the heavens, to consider our significance and connectedness in a universe whose scale means that human life is almost imperceptible. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. From time to time, you’ll hear me come in with a brief prompt. Some may help you settle in more deeply. Others, perhaps not so much. Either way, just stay inside the story. That’s all you need to do to feel its effect. Before we hear from Michelle, let’s take just a little time to settle. If you can see the sky, look up at it. If you can’t – and it’s safe to do so – just look up at the space above you. And feel the sensations of your feet on the ground at the same time. Aware of the space around you. And at the same time grounded, connected to the earth. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. THALLER: For nearly my entire life, I have felt lonely. I have no memory of when this started – and now I have no idea what it would be like to experience a single moment of my life without it. I constantly struggle with feelings of isolation from other people, from myself, from life. But for as long as I can remember, there’s one place I don’t feel lonely: under a clear, star-filled sky. I have no idea why this should be the case; honestly, it makes no sense at all. My mother told me that she used to find me, barely able to walk, trying to go outside and look at the stars. They’ve always felt like old friends, and they make me feel safe. Now I’m a professional astronomer, but that emotional response has never changed. Even now, when I’ve spent decades learning the physics of the hot gases in their interiors, doing the math to calculate their orbits, I still go outside just to look at them with my own eyes. I need to. I need to spend time with my friends. I felt this way even before I knew what the stars were, and now that I know much more about them, it turns out that my instincts were deeply, almost strangely, correct. I think most of us have some idea that astronomers are people who live with things much larger than themselves. Stars are huge almost unimaginably so, and the distances to them intractable. And that’s the smallest end of the astronomical scale. Galaxies are larger still, monsters too vast to comprehend; elegant rotating disks of hundreds of billions of stars, uncountable trillions of miles across. Scales of time are everywhere around you too. We study the lives of the stars, although a human lifespan to them is like a tiny two-winged midge that is born, breeds, and dies in a day. Some stars live only a few million years – a fast, intense life in stellar terms – while others will live longer than time has yet existed. But stars honor a lifecycle like everything in the universe: they are born, live, and die. And we are a consequence of this cycle. I would not be standing here, looking up at the sky, had not generations of stars lived and died to bring me here, to this moment. This is an incredible thing to know, and it remains my favorite single fact. At the beginning of the universe, only the very simplest atoms existed. Nowhere, in the entirety of space, was there a single bit of the stuff that makes you into the being that you are; no oxygen, carbon, calcium. Deep in the core of stars, simple atoms are fused together into larger, more complex ones. The largest ones are not easy to make; they take the death of a star. The actual moment of death for a giant star is one of the few things in the sky that actually happens quickly, to a human sensibility: they explode violently in what we call a supernova explosion. It’s in this explosion that all the larger atoms of the universe are created. Every atom of iron, from the metal in your cooking pans to the tiny mineral reserves in your blood that turn it red, is formed from these moments of death; entire solar systems ripping themselves apart in an instant. An Instant. And you can see these, all over the sky, on a dark night in California. Perched in the hills on the outskirts of San Diego, the Mount Palomar telescope is a grand relic from the middle of the last century. Its mirror first saw light in 1948, and is one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. The 200 inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar is the most beautiful piece of technology ever built. Unlike today’s telescopes, which are certainly more powerful, the Hale is breathtakingly elegant. The classically-proportioned dome is large enough to cast the central behemoth into shadow, and the telescope itself is long enough to make it feel that you’re actually sighting the stars. It’s an example of lost technology, not unlike the Pyramids or Stonehenge. Every single time I go to Mount Palomar as an astronomer, I feel a wonderful, dissonant feeling of being in a sacred temple, and being a joyous, disbelieving child erroneously left alone among treasure by careless adults. I can never believe I’m allowed to enter that space. Even the path to Palomar feels like a journey away from the mundane world. Switchback roads that never fail to disorient me and make me a little seasick, a desert that gives way to tall trees and far vistas around each turn. The smell of pine and dust on the way up. Then I open the doors of the observatory and I’m greeted by the scent of marble hallways and the mellow old grease that coats the vast gears under the floor that have turned the telescope to track the stars for 70 years. I set up my experiment for the night, which requires the giant eye to stare at the same tiny part of the sky for many hours, and I settle in for a long night. GUNATILLAKE: How settled do you feel right now? As settled as Michelle, ready for her long night observing the heavens? Or do you have a sliver of impatience, the mind restless to move onto what's next? Note it and come back to your breath. THALLER: With some time to spare, I go outside to walk around the dome, scan the sky for any approaching weather, and honestly, just enjoy the moment with the unaltered night sky. No telescopes, small or giant, needed. My old friends are a comfort to my warm, living eyes. I wander over to check in with astronomers working in a nearby building that houses another old telescope that’s been repurposed for modern research – in this case, it scans the skies looking for the brief blasts of light that indicate a massive star has died, exploded in a supernova. I ask the woman working that night how many supernovas she’s found so far. “A dozen tonight,” she tells me. I walk back through the woods and look back up at the sky, I feel unequal to the task of even trying to understand what that means. In one evening, a dozen star systems, complete with any planets or life around them, came to a violent and sudden end, blown to bits. A dozen. In a few hours. This goes on around us every night, every day, every hour. And from the debris of that death comes every thing, literally every atom, we need for life. Spreading their nuclear-furnaced debris back into space, the galaxy now has more of the stuff of life to work with. I wouldn’t be here tonight had many millions of stars not died before. Some atoms in my body were formed, literally, a hundred thousand trillion miles away from where I sit tonight. I am vast. Me. And I am alive. And I’m soaked to the core of my existence in death; unimaginably vast death. Birth and death bonded together cheek to jowl, so tightly that one leaks into the other, across a galaxy. That is what I am. That is what you are. The story of the universe doesn't care if you think you’re worthy or not, if you wish to embrace this truth or reject it. There is no possible way for the universe to judge you; none of our human-made barriers or classifications exist. GUNATILLAKE: We spend so much of our lives, within the containers of labels and classifications. Labels put there by others, or by ourselves. What might it be like to not be judged at all? How freeing would it be? THALLER: Often, I feel overwhelmed with even my small, limited perception of the larger universe and my deep connection to it. Sometimes, I honestly can only deal with it by letting go. At this scale, so large and so small, there are no expectations. Everything can drop away. Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. What expectations have you put on yourself, your life, others, other lives? I spent the last few decades of my life pushing so hard. I constantly feel inadequate, not smart enough, not hard-working enough, just plain wrong. I constantly yearn to feel accepted, be part of a family. I crave connection and intimacy. These feelings have led me to try to hold on to people too fiercely, fall in love too quickly, fear change too intensely. At times, it has driven people away. I learned to push my emotions so deep down, I couldn’t even feel them anymore. I thought this was being strong, and I was proud of my control. The only problem was, it didn’t work. I became more and more stressed, then pushed harder and harder, until it all came crashing down and I had to, for the first time in my life, actually listen to my feelings. This is also the universe trying to know itself; there is nothing less perfect about your real, authentic self, no matter your expectations. You can just let go. You can even let go of the shame of not being able to let go. Don’t let this be another way to judge yourself. The loneliness and fear and insecurity are still here with me – and always will be. And they are also part of the lesson the universe is trying to learn through my tiny life. The universe doesn’t care about the definitions, limitations, and expectations you’ve put on yourself. You are part of it just by existing. And so is everyone around you, as well as everything around you – every bird and flower, and rock and wave. GUNATILLAKE: You can just let go. It's not always easy, but you can just let go. THALLER: There is another amazing secret that even today, scientists are teasing out of the universe. For more than 100 years now, going back to the work of Albert Einstein, we have begun to understand that time is not a progression, not a river that runs in one direction. Instead, time is a landscape, much like space. From the right perspective (and yes, unfortunately one that three-dimensional creatures like us can’t see), all of time would be laid out before you, every instant that has ever existed or will ever exist. There's really nothing more real about this moment right now than moments that are billions of years in the future or millions of years in what we think of as the past. Not only am I made of life and death, but I am, individually, all those things at once. The earth has not formed yet. The sun has died and all the stars gone dark for uncountable trillions of years. Now. I think of that when contemplating love and loss; it helps me, honestly just a little, but it does help me, to deal with the fear and loneliness that are as much a part of my life as breath. I've said to my husband, "When the universe began, I was holding your hand, and when the universe ends, I'll be holding your hand." And we actually believe that to be literally true. GUNATILLAKE: The nighttime sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully: the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even. So with your permission, let me guide you through a meditation flowing from that theme. If it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes, then please do so. And if you can’t right now, that’s totally fine, the practice will still work for you, but you might want to try it again at a time when you can be still with eyes closed. That might be fun. Ok. Relaxing your body. Relaxing your mind. Letting your eyelids rest softly closed, if that’s ok. Your face, your hands, your belly relaxed. And as you relax, let your attention settle on the inner cinema screen of your mind, the screen of your imagination. Begin by picturing yourself in the space that you’re in. Just as it is. Imagine the setting, the layout. And feel yourself really inhabiting that place. Now allow the picture to expand to include your city. Perhaps as one of those top-down aerial shots. See how much space you take up in this view, how much smaller you are. Now expand your imagination even further, to the region you’re in, and then to the country. Notice where you are in this picture. Now we’re going to allow the aerial shot to go all the way into space. Imagine seeing the Earth from the moon. See where you are on the planet. Notice how vast the earth is. The oceans, the land masses, the weather systems. Now expand even further out, moving away from the sun. Past Mars, Jupiter, past Saturn and its rings. The sun shrinking and the Earth – where we are – starting to vanish from sight entirely. Now allow your minds eye to move out even further, all the way to the point where you're taking in the whole of the Milky Way galaxy. How much space do you take up at this scale? What does this vantage point bring up for you? Awe? Fear? Confusion? Wonder? During this whole thought experiment, every single thing you’ve imagined has been in your mind. You didn't physically travel out to the edge of space. You imagined your way through a series of complex thoughts. So, notice that as you sit, stand or lie here, not only are thoughts arising in your awareness, but so is every other aspect of your experience: sights, sounds, smells, taste. The sensations of your body. They all wash through your experience. Sensations which arise, stick around for a while and then move on. Notice how not a single thing arises outside of your experience. All of this is happening in your awareness. Furthermore, it's the only experience you've ever known. Can you think of anything that you've ever known which you didn't know through your direct experience? From this vantage point, every single thing you’ve thought, felt, or known has arisen within this human experience of ours. Anything you can imagine as being outside of it, including the vast magnitudes of space, arises as a thought within this experience. We are the universe knowing itself. We are made of stars. So if it helps to remember that when faced with something which closes down our sense of wonder, which contracts us, then my invitation would be to do so. And I’m sure that Michelle would agree.
About Michelle Thaller
From the closing meditation
Life and love and the moment
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MICHELLE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
WONDER
MICHELLE THALLER
Life and love and the moment
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
WONDER
MICHELLE THALLER
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Dr. Michelle Thaller is the Assistant Director of Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She has a bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Caltech, she became particularly interested in public outreach and science communication, and served as the public outreach lead for the Spitzer Space Telescope at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has also worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on strategic communications for all of NASA. Outside of her work, Michelle is one of the regular hosts of Discovery Science Channel’s “How the Universe Works” and "Space's Deepest Secrets." Michelle hosted the podcast “Orbital Path” for PRX, and appears on Big Think. She has received several high-profile awards for online science journalism and science leadership.
Dr. Michelle Thaller is the Assistant Director of Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She has a bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Caltech, she became particularly interested in public outreach and science communication, and served as the public outreach lead for the Spitzer Space Telescope at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has also worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on strategic communications for all of NASA. Outside of her work, Michelle is one of the regular hosts of Discovery Science Channel’s “How the Universe Works” and "Space's Deepest Secrets." Michelle hosted the podcast “Orbital Path” for PRX, and appears on Big Think. She has received several high-profile awards for online science journalism and science leadership.
MICHELLE THALLER
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"The night-time sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully, the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even."
MICHELLE THALLER: Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve always loved looking up at a clear night sky full of stars, space, and questions. And few people know what’s up there better than astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller. In today’s episode, Michelle takes us up to the heavens, to consider our significance and connectedness in a universe whose scale means that human life is almost imperceptible. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. From time to time, you’ll hear me come in with a brief prompt. Some may help you settle in more deeply. Others, perhaps not so much. Either way, just stay inside the story. That’s all you need to do to feel its effect. Before we hear from Michelle, let’s take just a little time to settle. If you can see the sky, look up at it. If you can’t – and it’s safe to do so – just look up at the space above you. And feel the sensations of your feet on the ground at the same time. Aware of the space around you. And at the same time grounded, connected to the earth. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. THALLER: For nearly my entire life, I have felt lonely. I have no memory of when this started – and now I have no idea what it would be like to experience a single moment of my life without it. I constantly struggle with feelings of isolation from other people, from myself, from life. But for as long as I can remember, there’s one place I don’t feel lonely: under a clear, star-filled sky. I have no idea why this should be the case; honestly, it makes no sense at all. My mother told me that she used to find me, barely able to walk, trying to go outside and look at the stars. They’ve always felt like old friends, and they make me feel safe. Now I’m a professional astronomer, but that emotional response has never changed. Even now, when I’ve spent decades learning the physics of the hot gases in their interiors, doing the math to calculate their orbits, I still go outside just to look at them with my own eyes. I need to. I need to spend time with my friends. I felt this way even before I knew what the stars were, and now that I know much more about them, it turns out that my instincts were deeply, almost strangely, correct. I think most of us have some idea that astronomers are people who live with things much larger than themselves. Stars are huge almost unimaginably so, and the distances to them intractable. And that’s the smallest end of the astronomical scale. Galaxies are larger still, monsters too vast to comprehend; elegant rotating disks of hundreds of billions of stars, uncountable trillions of miles across. Scales of time are everywhere around you too. We study the lives of the stars, although a human lifespan to them is like a tiny two-winged midge that is born, breeds, and dies in a day. Some stars live only a few million years – a fast, intense life in stellar terms – while others will live longer than time has yet existed. But stars honor a lifecycle like everything in the universe: they are born, live, and die. And we are a consequence of this cycle. I would not be standing here, looking up at the sky, had not generations of stars lived and died to bring me here, to this moment. This is an incredible thing to know, and it remains my favorite single fact. At the beginning of the universe, only the very simplest atoms existed. Nowhere, in the entirety of space, was there a single bit of the stuff that makes you into the being that you are; no oxygen, carbon, calcium. Deep in the core of stars, simple atoms are fused together into larger, more complex ones. The largest ones are not easy to make; they take the death of a star. The actual moment of death for a giant star is one of the few things in the sky that actually happens quickly, to a human sensibility: they explode violently in what we call a supernova explosion. It’s in this explosion that all the larger atoms of the universe are created. Every atom of iron, from the metal in your cooking pans to the tiny mineral reserves in your blood that turn it red, is formed from these moments of death; entire solar systems ripping themselves apart in an instant. An Instant. And you can see these, all over the sky, on a dark night in California. Perched in the hills on the outskirts of San Diego, the Mount Palomar telescope is a grand relic from the middle of the last century. Its mirror first saw light in 1948, and is one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. The 200 inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar is the most beautiful piece of technology ever built. Unlike today’s telescopes, which are certainly more powerful, the Hale is breathtakingly elegant. The classically-proportioned dome is large enough to cast the central behemoth into shadow, and the telescope itself is long enough to make it feel that you’re actually sighting the stars. It’s an example of lost technology, not unlike the Pyramids or Stonehenge. Every single time I go to Mount Palomar as an astronomer, I feel a wonderful, dissonant feeling of being in a sacred temple, and being a joyous, disbelieving child erroneously left alone among treasure by careless adults. I can never believe I’m allowed to enter that space. Even the path to Palomar feels like a journey away from the mundane world. Switchback roads that never fail to disorient me and make me a little seasick, a desert that gives way to tall trees and far vistas around each turn. The smell of pine and dust on the way up. Then I open the doors of the observatory and I’m greeted by the scent of marble hallways and the mellow old grease that coats the vast gears under the floor that have turned the telescope to track the stars for 70 years. I set up my experiment for the night, which requires the giant eye to stare at the same tiny part of the sky for many hours, and I settle in for a long night. GUNATILLAKE: How settled do you feel right now? As settled as Michelle, ready for her long night observing the heavens? Or do you have a sliver of impatience, the mind restless to move onto what's next? Note it and come back to your breath. THALLER: With some time to spare, I go outside to walk around the dome, scan the sky for any approaching weather, and honestly, just enjoy the moment with the unaltered night sky. No telescopes, small or giant, needed. My old friends are a comfort to my warm, living eyes. I wander over to check in with astronomers working in a nearby building that houses another old telescope that’s been repurposed for modern research – in this case, it scans the skies looking for the brief blasts of light that indicate a massive star has died, exploded in a supernova. I ask the woman working that night how many supernovas she’s found so far. “A dozen tonight,” she tells me. I walk back through the woods and look back up at the sky, I feel unequal to the task of even trying to understand what that means. In one evening, a dozen star systems, complete with any planets or life around them, came to a violent and sudden end, blown to bits. A dozen. In a few hours. This goes on around us every night, every day, every hour. And from the debris of that death comes every thing, literally every atom, we need for life. Spreading their nuclear-furnaced debris back into space, the galaxy now has more of the stuff of life to work with. I wouldn’t be here tonight had many millions of stars not died before. Some atoms in my body were formed, literally, a hundred thousand trillion miles away from where I sit tonight. I am vast. Me. And I am alive. And I’m soaked to the core of my existence in death; unimaginably vast death. Birth and death bonded together cheek to jowl, so tightly that one leaks into the other, across a galaxy. That is what I am. That is what you are. The story of the universe doesn't care if you think you’re worthy or not, if you wish to embrace this truth or reject it. There is no possible way for the universe to judge you; none of our human-made barriers or classifications exist. GUNATILLAKE: We spend so much of our lives, within the containers of labels and classifications. Labels put there by others, or by ourselves. What might it be like to not be judged at all? How freeing would it be? THALLER: Often, I feel overwhelmed with even my small, limited perception of the larger universe and my deep connection to it. Sometimes, I honestly can only deal with it by letting go. At this scale, so large and so small, there are no expectations. Everything can drop away. Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. What expectations have you put on yourself, your life, others, other lives? I spent the last few decades of my life pushing so hard. I constantly feel inadequate, not smart enough, not hard-working enough, just plain wrong. I constantly yearn to feel accepted, be part of a family. I crave connection and intimacy. These feelings have led me to try to hold on to people too fiercely, fall in love too quickly, fear change too intensely. At times, it has driven people away. I learned to push my emotions so deep down, I couldn’t even feel them anymore. I thought this was being strong, and I was proud of my control. The only problem was, it didn’t work. I became more and more stressed, then pushed harder and harder, until it all came crashing down and I had to, for the first time in my life, actually listen to my feelings. This is also the universe trying to know itself; there is nothing less perfect about your real, authentic self, no matter your expectations. You can just let go. You can even let go of the shame of not being able to let go. Don’t let this be another way to judge yourself. The loneliness and fear and insecurity are still here with me – and always will be. And they are also part of the lesson the universe is trying to learn through my tiny life. The universe doesn’t care about the definitions, limitations, and expectations you’ve put on yourself. You are part of it just by existing. And so is everyone around you, as well as everything around you – every bird and flower, and rock and wave. GUNATILLAKE: You can just let go. It's not always easy, but you can just let go. THALLER: There is another amazing secret that even today, scientists are teasing out of the universe. For more than 100 years now, going back to the work of Albert Einstein, we have begun to understand that time is not a progression, not a river that runs in one direction. Instead, time is a landscape, much like space. From the right perspective (and yes, unfortunately one that three-dimensional creatures like us can’t see), all of time would be laid out before you, every instant that has ever existed or will ever exist. There's really nothing more real about this moment right now than moments that are billions of years in the future or millions of years in what we think of as the past. Not only am I made of life and death, but I am, individually, all those things at once. The earth has not formed yet. The sun has died and all the stars gone dark for uncountable trillions of years. Now. I think of that when contemplating love and loss; it helps me, honestly just a little, but it does help me, to deal with the fear and loneliness that are as much a part of my life as breath. I've said to my husband, "When the universe began, I was holding your hand, and when the universe ends, I'll be holding your hand." And we actually believe that to be literally true. GUNATILLAKE: The nighttime sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully: the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even. So with your permission, let me guide you through a meditation flowing from that theme. If it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes, then please do so. And if you can’t right now, that’s totally fine, the practice will still work for you, but you might want to try it again at a time when you can be still with eyes closed. That might be fun. Ok. Relaxing your body. Relaxing your mind. Letting your eyelids rest softly closed, if that’s ok. Your face, your hands, your belly relaxed. And as you relax, let your attention settle on the inner cinema screen of your mind, the screen of your imagination. Begin by picturing yourself in the space that you’re in. Just as it is. Imagine the setting, the layout. And feel yourself really inhabiting that place. Now allow the picture to expand to include your city. Perhaps as one of those top-down aerial shots. See how much space you take up in this view, how much smaller you are. Now expand your imagination even further, to the region you’re in, and then to the country. Notice where you are in this picture. Now we’re going to allow the aerial shot to go all the way into space. Imagine seeing the Earth from the moon. See where you are on the planet. Notice how vast the earth is. The oceans, the land masses, the weather systems. Now expand even further out, moving away from the sun. Past Mars, Jupiter, past Saturn and its rings. The sun shrinking and the Earth – where we are – starting to vanish from sight entirely. Now allow your minds eye to move out even further, all the way to the point where you're taking in the whole of the Milky Way galaxy. How much space do you take up at this scale? What does this vantage point bring up for you? Awe? Fear? Confusion? Wonder? During this whole thought experiment, every single thing you’ve imagined has been in your mind. You didn't physically travel out to the edge of space. You imagined your way through a series of complex thoughts. So, notice that as you sit, stand or lie here, not only are thoughts arising in your awareness, but so is every other aspect of your experience: sights, sounds, smells, taste. The sensations of your body. They all wash through your experience. Sensations which arise, stick around for a while and then move on. Notice how not a single thing arises outside of your experience. All of this is happening in your awareness. Furthermore, it's the only experience you've ever known. Can you think of anything that you've ever known which you didn't know through your direct experience? From this vantage point, every single thing you’ve thought, felt, or known has arisen within this human experience of ours. Anything you can imagine as being outside of it, including the vast magnitudes of space, arises as a thought within this experience. We are the universe knowing itself. We are made of stars. So if it helps to remember that when faced with something which closes down our sense of wonder, which contracts us, then my invitation would be to do so. And I’m sure that Michelle would agree.
Michelle Thaller
CONNECTION
As an astronomer and science communicator, Michelle Thaller thinks deeply about our place in the universe. In her Meditative Story, she explores the significance of a single human — you — in a universe so immense that your very existence is of no consequence ... yet of every consequence.
CONNECTION
Life and love and the moment
MICHELLE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
From the closing meditation
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MICHELLE THALLER: Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve always loved looking up at a clear night sky full of stars, space, and questions. And few people know what’s up there better than astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller. In today’s episode, Michelle takes us up to the heavens, to consider our significance and connectedness in a universe whose scale means that human life is almost imperceptible. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. From time to time, you’ll hear me come in with a brief prompt. Some may help you settle in more deeply. Others, perhaps not so much. Either way, just stay inside the story. That’s all you need to do to feel its effect. Before we hear from Michelle, let’s take just a little time to settle. If you can see the sky, look up at it. If you can’t – and it’s safe to do so – just look up at the space above you. And feel the sensations of your feet on the ground at the same time. Aware of the space around you. And at the same time grounded, connected to the earth. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. THALLER: For nearly my entire life, I have felt lonely. I have no memory of when this started – and now I have no idea what it would be like to experience a single moment of my life without it. I constantly struggle with feelings of isolation from other people, from myself, from life. But for as long as I can remember, there’s one place I don’t feel lonely: under a clear, star-filled sky. I have no idea why this should be the case; honestly, it makes no sense at all. My mother told me that she used to find me, barely able to walk, trying to go outside and look at the stars. They’ve always felt like old friends, and they make me feel safe. Now I’m a professional astronomer, but that emotional response has never changed. Even now, when I’ve spent decades learning the physics of the hot gases in their interiors, doing the math to calculate their orbits, I still go outside just to look at them with my own eyes. I need to. I need to spend time with my friends. I felt this way even before I knew what the stars were, and now that I know much more about them, it turns out that my instincts were deeply, almost strangely, correct. I think most of us have some idea that astronomers are people who live with things much larger than themselves. Stars are huge almost unimaginably so, and the distances to them intractable. And that’s the smallest end of the astronomical scale. Galaxies are larger still, monsters too vast to comprehend; elegant rotating disks of hundreds of billions of stars, uncountable trillions of miles across. Scales of time are everywhere around you too. We study the lives of the stars, although a human lifespan to them is like a tiny two-winged midge that is born, breeds, and dies in a day. Some stars live only a few million years – a fast, intense life in stellar terms – while others will live longer than time has yet existed. But stars honor a lifecycle like everything in the universe: they are born, live, and die. And we are a consequence of this cycle. I would not be standing here, looking up at the sky, had not generations of stars lived and died to bring me here, to this moment. This is an incredible thing to know, and it remains my favorite single fact. At the beginning of the universe, only the very simplest atoms existed. Nowhere, in the entirety of space, was there a single bit of the stuff that makes you into the being that you are; no oxygen, carbon, calcium. Deep in the core of stars, simple atoms are fused together into larger, more complex ones. The largest ones are not easy to make; they take the death of a star. The actual moment of death for a giant star is one of the few things in the sky that actually happens quickly, to a human sensibility: they explode violently in what we call a supernova explosion. It’s in this explosion that all the larger atoms of the universe are created. Every atom of iron, from the metal in your cooking pans to the tiny mineral reserves in your blood that turn it red, is formed from these moments of death; entire solar systems ripping themselves apart in an instant. An Instant. And you can see these, all over the sky, on a dark night in California. Perched in the hills on the outskirts of San Diego, the Mount Palomar telescope is a grand relic from the middle of the last century. Its mirror first saw light in 1948, and is one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. The 200 inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar is the most beautiful piece of technology ever built. Unlike today’s telescopes, which are certainly more powerful, the Hale is breathtakingly elegant. The classically-proportioned dome is large enough to cast the central behemoth into shadow, and the telescope itself is long enough to make it feel that you’re actually sighting the stars. It’s an example of lost technology, not unlike the Pyramids or Stonehenge. Every single time I go to Mount Palomar as an astronomer, I feel a wonderful, dissonant feeling of being in a sacred temple, and being a joyous, disbelieving child erroneously left alone among treasure by careless adults. I can never believe I’m allowed to enter that space. Even the path to Palomar feels like a journey away from the mundane world. Switchback roads that never fail to disorient me and make me a little seasick, a desert that gives way to tall trees and far vistas around each turn. The smell of pine and dust on the way up. Then I open the doors of the observatory and I’m greeted by the scent of marble hallways and the mellow old grease that coats the vast gears under the floor that have turned the telescope to track the stars for 70 years. I set up my experiment for the night, which requires the giant eye to stare at the same tiny part of the sky for many hours, and I settle in for a long night. GUNATILLAKE: How settled do you feel right now? As settled as Michelle, ready for her long night observing the heavens? Or do you have a sliver of impatience, the mind restless to move onto what's next? Note it and come back to your breath. THALLER: With some time to spare, I go outside to walk around the dome, scan the sky for any approaching weather, and honestly, just enjoy the moment with the unaltered night sky. No telescopes, small or giant, needed. My old friends are a comfort to my warm, living eyes. I wander over to check in with astronomers working in a nearby building that houses another old telescope that’s been repurposed for modern research – in this case, it scans the skies looking for the brief blasts of light that indicate a massive star has died, exploded in a supernova. I ask the woman working that night how many supernovas she’s found so far. “A dozen tonight,” she tells me. I walk back through the woods and look back up at the sky, I feel unequal to the task of even trying to understand what that means. In one evening, a dozen star systems, complete with any planets or life around them, came to a violent and sudden end, blown to bits. A dozen. In a few hours. This goes on around us every night, every day, every hour. And from the debris of that death comes every thing, literally every atom, we need for life. Spreading their nuclear-furnaced debris back into space, the galaxy now has more of the stuff of life to work with. I wouldn’t be here tonight had many millions of stars not died before. Some atoms in my body were formed, literally, a hundred thousand trillion miles away from where I sit tonight. I am vast. Me. And I am alive. And I’m soaked to the core of my existence in death; unimaginably vast death. Birth and death bonded together cheek to jowl, so tightly that one leaks into the other, across a galaxy. That is what I am. That is what you are. The story of the universe doesn't care if you think you’re worthy or not, if you wish to embrace this truth or reject it. There is no possible way for the universe to judge you; none of our human-made barriers or classifications exist. GUNATILLAKE: We spend so much of our lives, within the containers of labels and classifications. Labels put there by others, or by ourselves. What might it be like to not be judged at all? How freeing would it be? THALLER: Often, I feel overwhelmed with even my small, limited perception of the larger universe and my deep connection to it. Sometimes, I honestly can only deal with it by letting go. At this scale, so large and so small, there are no expectations. Everything can drop away. Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. What expectations have you put on yourself, your life, others, other lives? I spent the last few decades of my life pushing so hard. I constantly feel inadequate, not smart enough, not hard-working enough, just plain wrong. I constantly yearn to feel accepted, be part of a family. I crave connection and intimacy. These feelings have led me to try to hold on to people too fiercely, fall in love too quickly, fear change too intensely. At times, it has driven people away. I learned to push my emotions so deep down, I couldn’t even feel them anymore. I thought this was being strong, and I was proud of my control. The only problem was, it didn’t work. I became more and more stressed, then pushed harder and harder, until it all came crashing down and I had to, for the first time in my life, actually listen to my feelings. This is also the universe trying to know itself; there is nothing less perfect about your real, authentic self, no matter your expectations. You can just let go. You can even let go of the shame of not being able to let go. Don’t let this be another way to judge yourself. The loneliness and fear and insecurity are still here with me – and always will be. And they are also part of the lesson the universe is trying to learn through my tiny life. The universe doesn’t care about the definitions, limitations, and expectations you’ve put on yourself. You are part of it just by existing. And so is everyone around you, as well as everything around you – every bird and flower, and rock and wave. GUNATILLAKE: You can just let go. It's not always easy, but you can just let go. THALLER: There is another amazing secret that even today, scientists are teasing out of the universe. For more than 100 years now, going back to the work of Albert Einstein, we have begun to understand that time is not a progression, not a river that runs in one direction. Instead, time is a landscape, much like space. From the right perspective (and yes, unfortunately one that three-dimensional creatures like us can’t see), all of time would be laid out before you, every instant that has ever existed or will ever exist. There's really nothing more real about this moment right now than moments that are billions of years in the future or millions of years in what we think of as the past. Not only am I made of life and death, but I am, individually, all those things at once. The earth has not formed yet. The sun has died and all the stars gone dark for uncountable trillions of years. Now. I think of that when contemplating love and loss; it helps me, honestly just a little, but it does help me, to deal with the fear and loneliness that are as much a part of my life as breath. I've said to my husband, "When the universe began, I was holding your hand, and when the universe ends, I'll be holding your hand." And we actually believe that to be literally true. GUNATILLAKE: The nighttime sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully: the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even. So with your permission, let me guide you through a meditation flowing from that theme. If it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes, then please do so. And if you can’t right now, that’s totally fine, the practice will still work for you, but you might want to try it again at a time when you can be still with eyes closed. That might be fun. Ok. Relaxing your body. Relaxing your mind. Letting your eyelids rest softly closed, if that’s ok. Your face, your hands, your belly relaxed. And as you relax, let your attention settle on the inner cinema screen of your mind, the screen of your imagination. Begin by picturing yourself in the space that you’re in. Just as it is. Imagine the setting, the layout. And feel yourself really inhabiting that place. Now allow the picture to expand to include your city. Perhaps as one of those top-down aerial shots. See how much space you take up in this view, how much smaller you are. Now expand your imagination even further, to the region you’re in, and then to the country. Notice where you are in this picture. Now we’re going to allow the aerial shot to go all the way into space. Imagine seeing the Earth from the moon. See where you are on the planet. Notice how vast the earth is. The oceans, the land masses, the weather systems. Now expand even further out, moving away from the sun. Past Mars, Jupiter, past Saturn and its rings. The sun shrinking and the Earth – where we are – starting to vanish from sight entirely. Now allow your minds eye to move out even further, all the way to the point where you're taking in the whole of the Milky Way galaxy. How much space do you take up at this scale? What does this vantage point bring up for you? Awe? Fear? Confusion? Wonder? During this whole thought experiment, every single thing you’ve imagined has been in your mind. You didn't physically travel out to the edge of space. You imagined your way through a series of complex thoughts. So, notice that as you sit, stand or lie here, not only are thoughts arising in your awareness, but so is every other aspect of your experience: sights, sounds, smells, taste. The sensations of your body. They all wash through your experience. Sensations which arise, stick around for a while and then move on. Notice how not a single thing arises outside of your experience. All of this is happening in your awareness. Furthermore, it's the only experience you've ever known. Can you think of anything that you've ever known which you didn't know through your direct experience? From this vantage point, every single thing you’ve thought, felt, or known has arisen within this human experience of ours. Anything you can imagine as being outside of it, including the vast magnitudes of space, arises as a thought within this experience. We are the universe knowing itself. We are made of stars. So if it helps to remember that when faced with something which closes down our sense of wonder, which contracts us, then my invitation would be to do so. And I’m sure that Michelle would agree.
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Michelle Thaller
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Episode Transcript
“There’s so much to love about Lucy’s story. So much to be moved by. And the aspect that strikes me most, is that it’s not a story about her husband Paul and his not being there, it’s a story about their daughter Cady and how she is. Her instinct to be with whatever shows up and enjoy thefreedom of life without the constriction of assumptions and norms. Running free with her balloon through the cemetery. And her wisdom to discern betweenwhat it is to be dead, and what it is to be alive. ”
Arianna Huffington
From the closing meditation
Our tiny meaningful lives in the vast universe
CONNECTION
About Michelle Thaller
PRESENCE
PRESENCE
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Dan Harris
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Dan Harris is the co-anchor of ABC News' Nightline and the weekend edition of Good Morning America. He also files reports for World News with Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, ABC News Digital and ABC News Radio. Harris has covered many of the biggest stories in recent years, including natural disasters from Haiti to Myanmar to New Orleans, and combat in Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, Iraq and the West Bank. He has embedded with an isolated Amazon Indian tribe, questioned drug lords in the slums of Rio, and confronted the head of Philip Morris International over the sale of cigarettes to Indonesian minors. He's won an Edward R. Murrow Award and, in 2009, an Emmy for his Nightline report, "How to Buy a Child in Ten Hours." His 2014 book, "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works — a True Story," was a New York Times Bestseller.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Arianna Huffington
Episode Transcript
DAN'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
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Arianna Huffington
Building a bond with my son
As an astronomer and science communicator, Michelle Thaller thinks deeply about our place in the universe. In her Meditative Story, she explores the significance of a single human — you — in a universe so immense that your very existence is of no consequence ... yet of every consequence.
Building a bond with my son
Broadcaster Dan Harris shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip.
Broadcaster Dan Harris shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip.
WONDER
Episode Transcript
About Dan Harris
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us.
As a TV news anchor, Dan Harris works very odd hours. But that meant he was missing out on his young son's daily routines, and he worried they were growing apart. In this quiet, personal story, he shares how he learned to savor their time together.
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
MICHELLE THALLER: Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve always loved looking up at a clear night sky full of stars, space, and questions. And few people know what’s up there better than astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller. In today’s episode, Michelle takes us up to the heavens, to consider our significance and connectedness in a universe whose scale means that human life is almost imperceptible. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. From time to time, you’ll hear me come in with a brief prompt. Some may help you settle in more deeply. Others, perhaps not so much. Either way, just stay inside the story. That’s all you need to do to feel its effect. Before we hear from Michelle, let’s take just a little time to settle. If you can see the sky, look up at it. If you can’t – and it’s safe to do so – just look up at the space above you. And feel the sensations of your feet on the ground at the same time. Aware of the space around you. And at the same time grounded, connected to the earth. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. THALLER: For nearly my entire life, I have felt lonely. I have no memory of when this started – and now I have no idea what it would be like to experience a single moment of my life without it. I constantly struggle with feelings of isolation from other people, from myself, from life. But for as long as I can remember, there’s one place I don’t feel lonely: under a clear, star-filled sky. I have no idea why this should be the case; honestly, it makes no sense at all. My mother told me that she used to find me, barely able to walk, trying to go outside and look at the stars. They’ve always felt like old friends, and they make me feel safe. Now I’m a professional astronomer, but that emotional response has never changed. Even now, when I’ve spent decades learning the physics of the hot gases in their interiors, doing the math to calculate their orbits, I still go outside just to look at them with my own eyes. I need to. I need to spend time with my friends. I felt this way even before I knew what the stars were, and now that I know much more about them, it turns out that my instincts were deeply, almost strangely, correct. I think most of us have some idea that astronomers are people who live with things much larger than themselves. Stars are huge almost unimaginably so, and the distances to them intractable. And that’s the smallest end of the astronomical scale. Galaxies are larger still, monsters too vast to comprehend; elegant rotating disks of hundreds of billions of stars, uncountable trillions of miles across. Scales of time are everywhere around you too. We study the lives of the stars, although a human lifespan to them is like a tiny two-winged midge that is born, breeds, and dies in a day. Some stars live only a few million years – a fast, intense life in stellar terms – while others will live longer than time has yet existed. But stars honor a lifecycle like everything in the universe: they are born, live, and die. And we are a consequence of this cycle. I would not be standing here, looking up at the sky, had not generations of stars lived and died to bring me here, to this moment. This is an incredible thing to know, and it remains my favorite single fact. At the beginning of the universe, only the very simplest atoms existed. Nowhere, in the entirety of space, was there a single bit of the stuff that makes you into the being that you are; no oxygen, carbon, calcium. Deep in the core of stars, simple atoms are fused together into larger, more complex ones. The largest ones are not easy to make; they take the death of a star. The actual moment of death for a giant star is one of the few things in the sky that actually happens quickly, to a human sensibility: they explode violently in what we call a supernova explosion. It’s in this explosion that all the larger atoms of the universe are created. Every atom of iron, from the metal in your cooking pans to the tiny mineral reserves in your blood that turn it red, is formed from these moments of death; entire solar systems ripping themselves apart in an instant. An Instant. And you can see these, all over the sky, on a dark night in California. Perched in the hills on the outskirts of San Diego, the Mount Palomar telescope is a grand relic from the middle of the last century. Its mirror first saw light in 1948, and is one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. The 200 inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar is the most beautiful piece of technology ever built. Unlike today’s telescopes, which are certainly more powerful, the Hale is breathtakingly elegant. The classically-proportioned dome is large enough to cast the central behemoth into shadow, and the telescope itself is long enough to make it feel that you’re actually sighting the stars. It’s an example of lost technology, not unlike the Pyramids or Stonehenge. Every single time I go to Mount Palomar as an astronomer, I feel a wonderful, dissonant feeling of being in a sacred temple, and being a joyous, disbelieving child erroneously left alone among treasure by careless adults. I can never believe I’m allowed to enter that space. Even the path to Palomar feels like a journey away from the mundane world. Switchback roads that never fail to disorient me and make me a little seasick, a desert that gives way to tall trees and far vistas around each turn. The smell of pine and dust on the way up. Then I open the doors of the observatory and I’m greeted by the scent of marble hallways and the mellow old grease that coats the vast gears under the floor that have turned the telescope to track the stars for 70 years. I set up my experiment for the night, which requires the giant eye to stare at the same tiny part of the sky for many hours, and I settle in for a long night. GUNATILLAKE: How settled do you feel right now? As settled as Michelle, ready for her long night observing the heavens? Or do you have a sliver of impatience, the mind restless to move onto what's next? Note it and come back to your breath. THALLER: With some time to spare, I go outside to walk around the dome, scan the sky for any approaching weather, and honestly, just enjoy the moment with the unaltered night sky. No telescopes, small or giant, needed. My old friends are a comfort to my warm, living eyes. I wander over to check in with astronomers working in a nearby building that houses another old telescope that’s been repurposed for modern research – in this case, it scans the skies looking for the brief blasts of light that indicate a massive star has died, exploded in a supernova. I ask the woman working that night how many supernovas she’s found so far. “A dozen tonight,” she tells me. I walk back through the woods and look back up at the sky, I feel unequal to the task of even trying to understand what that means. In one evening, a dozen star systems, complete with any planets or life around them, came to a violent and sudden end, blown to bits. A dozen. In a few hours. This goes on around us every night, every day, every hour. And from the debris of that death comes every thing, literally every atom, we need for life. Spreading their nuclear-furnaced debris back into space, the galaxy now has more of the stuff of life to work with. I wouldn’t be here tonight had many millions of stars not died before. Some atoms in my body were formed, literally, a hundred thousand trillion miles away from where I sit tonight. I am vast. Me. And I am alive. And I’m soaked to the core of my existence in death; unimaginably vast death. Birth and death bonded together cheek to jowl, so tightly that one leaks into the other, across a galaxy. That is what I am. That is what you are. The story of the universe doesn't care if you think you’re worthy or not, if you wish to embrace this truth or reject it. There is no possible way for the universe to judge you; none of our human-made barriers or classifications exist. GUNATILLAKE: We spend so much of our lives, within the containers of labels and classifications. Labels put there by others, or by ourselves. What might it be like to not be judged at all? How freeing would it be? THALLER: Often, I feel overwhelmed with even my small, limited perception of the larger universe and my deep connection to it. Sometimes, I honestly can only deal with it by letting go. At this scale, so large and so small, there are no expectations. Everything can drop away. Everything about you has been here for the entirety of time, and everything that you are will utterly vanish in the blink of an eye. This is what you are; there is nothing to do about it. To be so significant and yet so insignificant all at once is the essence and the balance of what it means to be alive. What expectations have you put on yourself, your life, others, other lives? I spent the last few decades of my life pushing so hard. I constantly feel inadequate, not smart enough, not hard-working enough, just plain wrong. I constantly yearn to feel accepted, be part of a family. I crave connection and intimacy. These feelings have led me to try to hold on to people too fiercely, fall in love too quickly, fear change too intensely. At times, it has driven people away. I learned to push my emotions so deep down, I couldn’t even feel them anymore. I thought this was being strong, and I was proud of my control. The only problem was, it didn’t work. I became more and more stressed, then pushed harder and harder, until it all came crashing down and I had to, for the first time in my life, actually listen to my feelings. This is also the universe trying to know itself; there is nothing less perfect about your real, authentic self, no matter your expectations. You can just let go. You can even let go of the shame of not being able to let go. Don’t let this be another way to judge yourself. The loneliness and fear and insecurity are still here with me – and always will be. And they are also part of the lesson the universe is trying to learn through my tiny life. The universe doesn’t care about the definitions, limitations, and expectations you’ve put on yourself. You are part of it just by existing. And so is everyone around you, as well as everything around you – every bird and flower, and rock and wave. GUNATILLAKE: You can just let go. It's not always easy, but you can just let go. THALLER: There is another amazing secret that even today, scientists are teasing out of the universe. For more than 100 years now, going back to the work of Albert Einstein, we have begun to understand that time is not a progression, not a river that runs in one direction. Instead, time is a landscape, much like space. From the right perspective (and yes, unfortunately one that three-dimensional creatures like us can’t see), all of time would be laid out before you, every instant that has ever existed or will ever exist. There's really nothing more real about this moment right now than moments that are billions of years in the future or millions of years in what we think of as the past. Not only am I made of life and death, but I am, individually, all those things at once. The earth has not formed yet. The sun has died and all the stars gone dark for uncountable trillions of years. Now. I think of that when contemplating love and loss; it helps me, honestly just a little, but it does help me, to deal with the fear and loneliness that are as much a part of my life as breath. I've said to my husband, "When the universe began, I was holding your hand, and when the universe ends, I'll be holding your hand." And we actually believe that to be literally true. GUNATILLAKE: The nighttime sky has long been a source of awe and wonder. There’s something about looking up and connecting with that vast expanse above that dilutes and reframes whatever issues we’re dealing with at the time. Michelle put it beautifully: the universe isn’t moved by whatever limitations we put upon ourselves. We are a part of it all the same. Held in its vastness. Part of that vastness. Made of it even. So with your permission, let me guide you through a meditation flowing from that theme. If it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes, then please do so. And if you can’t right now, that’s totally fine, the practice will still work for you, but you might want to try it again at a time when you can be still with eyes closed. That might be fun. Ok. Relaxing your body. Relaxing your mind. Letting your eyelids rest softly closed, if that’s ok. Your face, your hands, your belly relaxed. And as you relax, let your attention settle on the inner cinema screen of your mind, the screen of your imagination. Begin by picturing yourself in the space that you’re in. Just as it is. Imagine the setting, the layout. And feel yourself really inhabiting that place. Now allow the picture to expand to include your city. Perhaps as one of those top-down aerial shots. See how much space you take up in this view, how much smaller you are. Now expand your imagination even further, to the region you’re in, and then to the country. Notice where you are in this picture. Now we’re going to allow the aerial shot to go all the way into space. Imagine seeing the Earth from the moon. See where you are on the planet. Notice how vast the earth is. The oceans, the land masses, the weather systems. Now expand even further out, moving away from the sun. Past Mars, Jupiter, past Saturn and its rings. The sun shrinking and the Earth – where we are – starting to vanish from sight entirely. Now allow your minds eye to move out even further, all the way to the point where you're taking in the whole of the Milky Way galaxy. How much space do you take up at this scale? What does this vantage point bring up for you? Awe? Fear? Confusion? Wonder? During this whole thought experiment, every single thing you’ve imagined has been in your mind. You didn't physically travel out to the edge of space. You imagined your way through a series of complex thoughts. So, notice that as you sit, stand or lie here, not only are thoughts arising in your awareness, but so is every other aspect of your experience: sights, sounds, smells, taste. The sensations of your body. They all wash through your experience. Sensations which arise, stick around for a while and then move on. Notice how not a single thing arises outside of your experience. All of this is happening in your awareness. Furthermore, it's the only experience you've ever known. Can you think of anything that you've ever known which you didn't know through your direct experience? From this vantage point, every single thing you’ve thought, felt, or known has arisen within this human experience of ours. Anything you can imagine as being outside of it, including the vast magnitudes of space, arises as a thought within this experience. We are the universe knowing itself. We are made of stars. So if it helps to remember that when faced with something which closes down our sense of wonder, which contracts us, then my invitation would be to do so. And I’m sure that Michelle would agree.
About Dan Harris
From the closing meditation
Life and love and the moment
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MICHELLE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
OPENNESS
DAN HARRIS
Life and love and the moment
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
OPENNESS
MICHELLE THALLER
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Dr. Michelle Thaller is the Assistant Director of Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She has a bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Caltech, she became particularly interested in public outreach and science communication, and served as the public outreach lead for the Spitzer Space Telescope at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has also worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on strategic communications for all of NASA. Outside of her work, Michelle is one of the regular hosts of Discovery Science Channel’s “How the Universe Works” and "Space's Deepest Secrets." Michelle hosted the podcast “Orbital Path” for PRX, and appears on Big Think. She has received several high-profile awards for online science journalism and science leadership.
Dan Harris is the co-anchor of ABC News' Nightline and the weekend edition of Good Morning America. He also files reports for World News with Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, ABC News Digital and ABC News Radio. Harris has covered many of the biggest stories in recent years, including natural disasters from Haiti to Myanmar to New Orleans, and combat in Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, Iraq and the West Bank. He has embedded with an isolated Amazon Indian tribe, questioned drug lords in the slums of Rio, and confronted the head of Philip Morris International over the sale of cigarettes to Indonesian minors. He's won an Edward R. Murrow Award and, in 2009, an Emmy for his Nightline report, "How to Buy a Child in Ten Hours." His 2014 book, "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works — a True Story," was a New York Times Bestseller.
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"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
DAN HARRIS: When Bianca and I first had Alexander, I remember there being a whole tsunami of sentiment, both over email from my friends and on social media from people I didn’t know, where we were being told and exhorted to “enjoy every moment” or “cherish every moment.” And I always wondered about that: Is this just a kind of perfunctory thing that people say or is it maybe based in some sort of remorse that they may feel about having let their kid’s childhood slip by without really taking it all in while it was happening? ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Parenting is a rollercoaster. Steep climbs. Full on free falls. Sharp turns. One moment you’re filled with doubt and worry. The next joy and delight. It just is this way. Today’s storyteller, Dan Harris is a broadcaster and journalist, and the creator of the “10% Happier” meditation app and podcast. In the story he’s about to tell, Dan shares a candid look into his attempts to connect more with his son Alexander. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here? As I speak this, I’m standing in a recording studio in Glasgow. To help me be as present as possible for you, I’m feeling my feet on the ground. I’m aware of the temperature of the air on my skin. I know the movement in my face as I speak. What is it for you? What can you do right now to help you be as present and as grounded as possible? Relaxing the body. Letting the body breathe. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. HARRIS: So things have been pretty oedipal around my house for a while. My son Alexander is four and he's all about his mommy right now. Their bond is beautiful and tight – but that sometimes means it’s really hard for me to break in. Because of the nature of our respective schedules, my wife, Bianca, spends more time with Alexander. I work very funny hours. I’m employed at ABC News where I anchor “Good Morning America” on the weekends, which means I'm up at 3:45 in the morning and – once I’ve stretched, showered, and meditated – I sneak out of the apartment as quietly as possible, so as to not wake Alexander and Bianca, and then take a quick car ride through the dark and often utterly silent city streets to the office. Those are my weekend mornings. And then during the week, I’m one of the co-anchors of “Nightline”, which means for several nights I stay up really late to anchor that show. Bianca is a highly trained physician but she’s not working right now. She had breast cancer a few years ago and she’s been taking a little time off. Thankfully she's fine, but this situation does means she spends a lot more time with Alexander than I do. Typically, in the morning on weekdays, I walk out into the living room, disheveled, an hour into Alexander's playtime with his mom before he heads off to school. Sometimes I’ll catch them right in the middle of the often difficult routine of getting him ready for school. He's in preschool right now. Often Alexander thoroughly rejects me. He won't look at me, he won't even say hello. And if I go over to him, he whines or he calls for his mommy and runs away. This, as you might imagine, does not feel awesome first thing in the morning. The person I love the most in the world totally rejecting me. When I can get him to explain why, he’ll tell me that he doesn't like that I have "crazy hair" or that I smell. It feeds my overall sense of guilt that I’m not spending enough time with him. There are times where these interactions can make me sad or resentful, but on good mornings, if I go out into the living room and I sit quietly long enough, he will actually come over to me on his own. And on bad morn ings, all I get is him reluctantly deigning to allow me to kiss him on the forehead. I’m not a big one for metaphysical claims but Alexander is something of a miracle. We were told, Bianca and I, that it was a long shot that we would ever have a child. We went through IVF twice, in vitro fertilization. And on the second round, which we already knew was almost certainly going to be our last round, we got one egg. Everybody who goes through IVF is, of course, having fertility issues, but still, many of these people get 8 to 12 eggs. So again, we got one. And they implanted it, and we now have this giant, blonde kid running around the house as a result. This is a huge deal for us to have a kid. And I really, really love him. And I do feel guilt about the fact that I'm not around as much as I would like to be. I do my best at this. We deliberately found an apartment that's seven blocks from my office so I'm able to pop in and out and see him during the day. And it's also close to his school, so I do go pick him up when I can. Those school pick-ups are actually quite magical. He’s often surprised and delighted to see me, and will run right over and give me a hug. Another thing I try to do is to organize regular father son dates, because I’ve found that when it’s just the two of us, he is much much nicer to me. So it's not like I never see him, but I would love to see him more. I miss a lot of dinners at home and mornings and stuff like that. One of my colleagues made a joke recently, he referred to my parenting style as “10 % around,” which was kind of a funny joke but it definitely stuck in my head. “Am I spending enough time with him?” And when I do see him, he's often so fixated on mommy that I’m persona non grata. GUNATILLAKE: If you were to rate how present you are right now, what percentage would you score yourself? Ten percent, 50%, more? It can be a fun thing to do from time to time – and no need to give yourself a hard time if your score isn't so high. Right now, what would it be to grow your presence by 10%? Come back to your breath. The feeling of the buds or headset over your ears. The sensations of this moment. HARRIS: So I decide, in consultation with my wife, to try to be a little bit more proactive and take Alexander on a father/son trip so that we can connect in a whole new way. I wonder what a change of scene will bring. I hesitate traveling with a then-three-year-old. I worry he’ll revolt at the idea of being away from mommy for a while. So I gingerly broach the subject with him. While he’s playing with his toys at the dining room table one night, I say, “What do you think little man? Do you want to go up to Boston? Do you want to go up to Boston and see your grandparents?” I grew up in Boston and my parents are still there. I ask him again, “Do you want to spend two nights just you and daddy?” And he says, “Yes.” I test him on this over the ensuing days, and he consistently says yes. So I put it on the books. I buy us plane tickets and book us a room. I tell my parents to clear time in their schedules. As the trip approaches, I’m increasingly concerned that he’s gonna have a full-on temper tantrum when I pick him up and try to get him in the cab to the airport. What if he doesn’t want to leave mommy? What if the entire trip is traumatic and awful for both of us? What if he won’t let me put him to bed? I used to put him to bed when he was a baby but ever since he's been able to speak, he’s had a whole problematic sleep career. He will not let me put him to bed. His mom can put him to bed, his nanny can put him to bed, but not me. In fact, one time I arranged a night where both his mother and his nanny were out of the house so I would be the only option. I remember he was sitting in the bath before bedtime, and after I’d finished shampooing him, it dawned on him that I was going to put him to bed. He started freaking out and whining in a way that suggested a full on bout of crying may be in the offing. One of the cats happened to walk through the bathroom at that time. And I asked Alexander, “Would you be okay with Ruby putting you to bed?” And he said, “Yes.” I asked him, “Why?” And he said, “Because she's a girl.” And so there I was, second fiddle to Ruby. GUNATILLAKE: Can you imagine being there, a fly on the wall? See Dan slumped, his son adamant, the cat nonchalant. HARRIS: We leave on a Sunday. I finish work, walk into our apartment, and he’s in a great mood, all dressed up, hair combed, and ready to go. I walk over to him and ask “Are you ready?” He answers in the affirmative, enthusiastically. So I change out of my suit and call a car. We head to the airport and I do my best to get him talking on the way, about all the fun things we’ll do in Boston. I put a heavy emphasis on ice cream. He’s in a really good mood. He looks out the window. He laughs and enjoys himself. Once we’re at the airport he’s a dream going through security. He insists though on riding on top of my roll-y suitcase. This is hard on my aging body, carrying this little beast on my suitcase through the airport all day, but we’re both having a really good time. We land in Boston and go to the hotel together. We head straight to the pool for a little bit after checking in, and then his grandparents show up and we eat dinner in our hotel room. It’s a great time. And then the hour arrives where I’m going to have to put him to bed. I do have a strategy though. There is no official bedtime, I tell him. Instead we head out into the long carpeted hallways where it is game time. I make him run wind sprints – in his PJs – for an indeterminate period. Occasionally, other guests walk out of their rooms, and see what Alexander and I are doing, and they laugh at us. If I’m able to get him tired enough, I’m thinking, then he’ll have no choice but to fall asleep. We have a whole set of games in the hallway where I run him up and down like a dog. He’s loving it, giggling and squealing as I chase him. I am clearly winning here. We head to bed to read some books. I don’t say anything about bedtime or going to sleep. We're just reading books here. And after just a few minutes, he crashes! I should say, this kid, generally, is not a great sleeper. He wakes up all the time and screams in the middle of the night. But not tonight. Not on the boys trip. GUNATILLAKE: With Alexander deeply asleep and Dan exhausted too no doubt, how are your energy levels? If you want to raise them a little, try straightening the spine, opening the chest, raising the chin, letting the body lead the mind. HARRIS: We spend the next day at Legoland. Me, Alexander, and his grandmother. Six hours. I am bored out of my mind, but he is having a great time – and it feels great just to watch him go. That night we have dinner at my parent's apartment. His uncle, my brother who just happens to be in Boston that night, joins us. It’s really sweet. Just my original, nuclear family, right here with my little son who’s being a really good kid. Eating his dinner: a bagel with an egg on it. He dances while he eats because that's what he does when he's happy. Everybody laughs and he says a lot of funny, cute things. The collective admiration and adoration of my family all focused on my little boy is really meaningful for me. After dinner we head back to our hotel room. He runs more wind sprints in the hallway and again, sleeps through the night. On our last day, we head to the New England Aquarium. We look at all the fish. Alexander’s attention span is limited, so we move very quickly from penguins to eels to sharks. He seems highly motivated to get me into the gift shop so he can get a treat. When we get back on the plane to head home Alexander is great. He looks out the window the whole time, clutching the new stuffed animal I got him. As somebody who’s been meditating for nearly a decade now, I’ve had many moments during this trip where I’m really glad to have the training because I’m able to just tune in to how, for lack of a less cheesy word, how sweet this experience is. I love this kid. Obviously, every parent loves their child. But especially given the fact that I'm an older dad, I’m 47, and given everything Bianca and I went through to get this kid, this whole situation is especially poignant. When Bianca and I first had Alexander, I remember there being a whole tsunami of sentiment, both over email from my friends and on social media from people I didn’t know, where we were being told and exhorted to enjoy every moment, or cherish every moment. And I always wondered about that. Is this just a kind of perfunctory thing that people say or is it maybe based in some sort of remorse that they may feel about having let their kid’s childhood slip by without really taking it all in while it was happening? One of the many things meditation is designed to do is to wake you up and to help you be right here wherever you happen to be. Throughout the course of my jaunt with my son, there are a lot of little snapshots in my mind of him looking out the window as the plane flew; or watching him look at the penguins in the Aquarium or fiddle with legos at Legoland; or dance around, bagel in hand, while my family laughs. And in all of these moments I was really able to do the opposite of zoning out, I was able to zone in. And in my experience, that really amplifies the awesomeness quotient immeasurably. The self awareness that I’ve been able to generate, that anybody can generate, through meditation allows me to notice and accentuate joy. And it can provoke what I consider to be healthy reflection about the fact, the inarguable fact, that these moments are fleeting, so it’s best not to waste them by reflexively reaching for my iPhone or something. GUNATILLAKE: In this world of distractions, our minds have become so well trained to jump from one thing to another. You might even feel that pull right now. If so, can you rest and acknowledge how Dan's story is making you feel. Letting any enjoyment or appreciation sink in. HARRIS: I should say that there are a few moments during our trip where Alexander says he misses mommy. It hurts my feelings a bit, but I just do a version of what we’re told to do during meditation. Rather than denying or trying to paper over that his feelings exist, I get him to tune in to himself. I ask him: “How does missing mommy make him feel? Sad?” And if he says yes, which he usually does, I say “It’s ok to feel sad, I get it. But we’re going to see her very soon. And in the meantime, we’re gonna have fun.” Generally speaking, this works like a charm. When we finally get home and ride the elevator up to our apartment, I prepare to tell his mother about what an amazing job Alexander did. Within minutes though, pretty much as soon as he’s around his mother again, he has a temper tantrum. Not at me, it’s directed quite squarely at her. This speaks, in my view, to the impenetrable bond he has with her and it actually makes me feel like this whole dynamic among the three of us is less about me and more about the fact that many children simply have intense relationships with their mothers. And you know what, I think it’s great that they have this bond. It’s now clear that there’s nothing for me to feel jealous or resentful about. Clearly, the move here, is just for me to make time for Alexander and I to interact one on one, so we can build our own relationship. And I think our boys trip really helped on that front. Interrupting the patterns, the grooves, in our everyday lives created new space for us to relate to one another differently. We’re building our own repertoire of private jokes and secret memories, mostly involving my allowing him to have more chocolate than mommy does. So I’ve decided that I'm going to do it again. We're already talking about going down to Florida together. I've also learned my lesson about the crazy hair in the mornings. Now, when I wake up, many days I put water in my hair so I look better for him. That has also helped. Oh, and the other day, he told me that he has now decided that daddy is, henceforth, allowed to put him to bed. So I’m finally on par with our cat Ruby. GUNATILLAKE: Parenting is hard. Given that my own eldest child, a boy, is pretty much the same age as Alexander, there’s a lot that I recognize in Dan’s story, the importance of stepping out of everyday routines in order to connect. But of all the themes, the one that stands out the most for me is the simple power of time spent together. When there’s disconnection, we solve it by connecting. Letting time and attention do their work. Attention and connection are in their own way the heart of meditation. So since you’re here, why not join me in a short meditation inspired by Dan’s story. It’ll be in two parts and we’ll start here, just as you are. Whatever position your body is in, if you’re moving or still, take a breath. Take two. Take as many as you want. If it’s been one of those days, why not sigh? Letting the sound drain away any tension that you might have been holding. And in this first part of the meditation, the idea is to just rest your attention with the body. No need to fixate on any area in particular, instead just resting, being aware of the body as a whole. Giving it your attention. Connecting. Letting the whole body, however it is, fill your awareness, soaking up your attention. As you do so, there will be flickers away from your connection with the body – times when particular sensations, thoughts, feelings come in and takeover. As with Dan, these might include doubt, judgement, boredom, worry, tiredness. It’s ok. Whenever you notice your connection with your overall sense of the body break, just come back and start again. Bringing the attention back. Reconnecting. Ok, now that you’re hopefully feeling a bit more grounded let’s move into the second part of the meditation. What I’d like you to do is to bring someone to mind that you wish you could spend more time with. For Dan it was his son. For me it’s my eldest sister. Who is it for you? There’s no right answer, but in my experience the first person you think of is probably the best person to go with. If you’re a visual person, you can picture an image of them. But if, like me, you don’t have too much of a visual mind, just recall something about them, an event, a feeling, a story, an image without pictures. Whatever helps bring them to mind, whatever helps bring them into your awareness. And this is where we’ll rest. Keeping your person in mind, spending time with the image of them. It might feel totally contrived, totally fake. That’s ok. It can be like that sometimes. Just do it anyway. Bringing to mind the person you wish you could spend more time with and keeping them in awareness as much as you can. As you do this, all sorts of thoughts may come up. Thoughts of regret, self-judgement, doubt. Thoughts of delight, happiness and joy as you feel touched by them. They’re all ok. We do the best we can, you know. Let this gentle attention towards your dear person forge a real sense of connection. They might be far away, they might be in the next room. You might have seen them just five minutes ago, or it could have been decades. It’s all ok. Your body relaxed. Your breathing gentle. Your special person in mind. Filling your mind. Feeling the charge between you. Trusting the quality of your wish to spend more time with them. Deepening your connection. Just as Dan did with Alexander.
Dan Harris
CONNECTION
As a TV news anchor, Dan Harris works very odd hours. But that meant he was missing out on his young son's daily routines, and he worried they were growing apart. In this quiet, personal story, he shares how he learned to savor their time together.
CONNECTION
Life and love and the moment
DAN'S MEDITATIVE STORY
From the closing meditation
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DAN HARRIS: When Bianca and I first had Alexander, I remember there being a whole tsunami of sentiment, both over email from my friends and on social media from people I didn’t know, where we were being told and exhorted to “enjoy every moment” or “cherish every moment.” And I always wondered about that: Is this just a kind of perfunctory thing that people say or is it maybe based in some sort of remorse that they may feel about having let their kid’s childhood slip by without really taking it all in while it was happening? ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Parenting is a rollercoaster. Steep climbs. Full on free falls. Sharp turns. One moment you’re filled with doubt and worry. The next joy and delight. It just is this way. Today’s storyteller, Dan Harris is a broadcaster and journalist, and the creator of the “10% Happier” meditation app and podcast. In the story he’s about to tell, Dan shares a candid look into his attempts to connect more with his son Alexander. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here? As I speak this, I’m standing in a recording studio in Glasgow. To help me be as present as possible for you, I’m feeling my feet on the ground. I’m aware of the temperature of the air on my skin. I know the movement in my face as I speak. What is it for you? What can you do right now to help you be as present and as grounded as possible? Relaxing the body. Letting the body breathe. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. HARRIS: So things have been pretty oedipal around my house for a while. My son Alexander is four and he's all about his mommy right now. Their bond is beautiful and tight – but that sometimes means it’s really hard for me to break in. Because of the nature of our respective schedules, my wife, Bianca, spends more time with Alexander. I work very funny hours. I’m employed at ABC News where I anchor “Good Morning America” on the weekends, which means I'm up at 3:45 in the morning and – once I’ve stretched, showered, and meditated – I sneak out of the apartment as quietly as possible, so as to not wake Alexander and Bianca, and then take a quick car ride through the dark and often utterly silent city streets to the office. Those are my weekend mornings. And then during the week, I’m one of the co-anchors of “Nightline”, which means for several nights I stay up really late to anchor that show. Bianca is a highly trained physician but she’s not working right now. She had breast cancer a few years ago and she’s been taking a little time off. Thankfully she's fine, but this situation does means she spends a lot more time with Alexander than I do. Typically, in the morning on weekdays, I walk out into the living room, disheveled, an hour into Alexander's playtime with his mom before he heads off to school. Sometimes I’ll catch them right in the middle of the often difficult routine of getting him ready for school. He's in preschool right now. Often Alexander thoroughly rejects me. He won't look at me, he won't even say hello. And if I go over to him, he whines or he calls for his mommy and runs away. This, as you might imagine, does not feel awesome first thing in the morning. The person I love the most in the world totally rejecting me. When I can get him to explain why, he’ll tell me that he doesn't like that I have "crazy hair" or that I smell. It feeds my overall sense of guilt that I’m not spending enough time with him. There are times where these interactions can make me sad or resentful, but on good mornings, if I go out into the living room and I sit quietly long enough, he will actually come over to me on his own. And on bad morn ings, all I get is him reluctantly deigning to allow me to kiss him on the forehead. I’m not a big one for metaphysical claims but Alexander is something of a miracle. We were told, Bianca and I, that it was a long shot that we would ever have a child. We went through IVF twice, in vitro fertilization. And on the second round, which we already knew was almost certainly going to be our last round, we got one egg. Everybody who goes through IVF is, of course, having fertility issues, but still, many of these people get 8 to 12 eggs. So again, we got one. And they implanted it, and we now have this giant, blonde kid running around the house as a result. This is a huge deal for us to have a kid. And I really, really love him. And I do feel guilt about the fact that I'm not around as much as I would like to be. I do my best at this. We deliberately found an apartment that's seven blocks from my office so I'm able to pop in and out and see him during the day. And it's also close to his school, so I do go pick him up when I can. Those school pick-ups are actually quite magical. He’s often surprised and delighted to see me, and will run right over and give me a hug. Another thing I try to do is to organize regular father son dates, because I’ve found that when it’s just the two of us, he is much much nicer to me. So it's not like I never see him, but I would love to see him more. I miss a lot of dinners at home and mornings and stuff like that. One of my colleagues made a joke recently, he referred to my parenting style as “10 % around,” which was kind of a funny joke but it definitely stuck in my head. “Am I spending enough time with him?” And when I do see him, he's often so fixated on mommy that I’m persona non grata. GUNATILLAKE: If you were to rate how present you are right now, what percentage would you score yourself? Ten percent, 50%, more? It can be a fun thing to do from time to time – and no need to give yourself a hard time if your score isn't so high. Right now, what would it be to grow your presence by 10%? Come back to your breath. The feeling of the buds or headset over your ears. The sensations of this moment. HARRIS: So I decide, in consultation with my wife, to try to be a little bit more proactive and take Alexander on a father/son trip so that we can connect in a whole new way. I wonder what a change of scene will bring. I hesitate traveling with a then-three-year-old. I worry he’ll revolt at the idea of being away from mommy for a while. So I gingerly broach the subject with him. While he’s playing with his toys at the dining room table one night, I say, “What do you think little man? Do you want to go up to Boston? Do you want to go up to Boston and see your grandparents?” I grew up in Boston and my parents are still there. I ask him again, “Do you want to spend two nights just you and daddy?” And he says, “Yes.” I test him on this over the ensuing days, and he consistently says yes. So I put it on the books. I buy us plane tickets and book us a room. I tell my parents to clear time in their schedules. As the trip approaches, I’m increasingly concerned that he’s gonna have a full-on temper tantrum when I pick him up and try to get him in the cab to the airport. What if he doesn’t want to leave mommy? What if the entire trip is traumatic and awful for both of us? What if he won’t let me put him to bed? I used to put him to bed when he was a baby but ever since he's been able to speak, he’s had a whole problematic sleep career. He will not let me put him to bed. His mom can put him to bed, his nanny can put him to bed, but not me. In fact, one time I arranged a night where both his mother and his nanny were out of the house so I would be the only option. I remember he was sitting in the bath before bedtime, and after I’d finished shampooing him, it dawned on him that I was going to put him to bed. He started freaking out and whining in a way that suggested a full on bout of crying may be in the offing. One of the cats happened to walk through the bathroom at that time. And I asked Alexander, “Would you be okay with Ruby putting you to bed?” And he said, “Yes.” I asked him, “Why?” And he said, “Because she's a girl.” And so there I was, second fiddle to Ruby. GUNATILLAKE: Can you imagine being there, a fly on the wall? See Dan slumped, his son adamant, the cat nonchalant. HARRIS: We leave on a Sunday. I finish work, walk into our apartment, and he’s in a great mood, all dressed up, hair combed, and ready to go. I walk over to him and ask “Are you ready?” He answers in the affirmative, enthusiastically. So I change out of my suit and call a car. We head to the airport and I do my best to get him talking on the way, about all the fun things we’ll do in Boston. I put a heavy emphasis on ice cream. He’s in a really good mood. He looks out the window. He laughs and enjoys himself. Once we’re at the airport he’s a dream going through security. He insists though on riding on top of my roll-y suitcase. This is hard on my aging body, carrying this little beast on my suitcase through the airport all day, but we’re both having a really good time. We land in Boston and go to the hotel together. We head straight to the pool for a little bit after checking in, and then his grandparents show up and we eat dinner in our hotel room. It’s a great time. And then the hour arrives where I’m going to have to put him to bed. I do have a strategy though. There is no official bedtime, I tell him. Instead we head out into the long carpeted hallways where it is game time. I make him run wind sprints – in his PJs – for an indeterminate period. Occasionally, other guests walk out of their rooms, and see what Alexander and I are doing, and they laugh at us. If I’m able to get him tired enough, I’m thinking, then he’ll have no choice but to fall asleep. We have a whole set of games in the hallway where I run him up and down like a dog. He’s loving it, giggling and squealing as I chase him. I am clearly winning here. We head to bed to read some books. I don’t say anything about bedtime or going to sleep. We're just reading books here. And after just a few minutes, he crashes! I should say, this kid, generally, is not a great sleeper. He wakes up all the time and screams in the middle of the night. But not tonight. Not on the boys trip. GUNATILLAKE: With Alexander deeply asleep and Dan exhausted too no doubt, how are your energy levels? If you want to raise them a little, try straightening the spine, opening the chest, raising the chin, letting the body lead the mind. HARRIS: We spend the next day at Legoland. Me, Alexander, and his grandmother. Six hours. I am bored out of my mind, but he is having a great time – and it feels great just to watch him go. That night we have dinner at my parent's apartment. His uncle, my brother who just happens to be in Boston that night, joins us. It’s really sweet. Just my original, nuclear family, right here with my little son who’s being a really good kid. Eating his dinner: a bagel with an egg on it. He dances while he eats because that's what he does when he's happy. Everybody laughs and he says a lot of funny, cute things. The collective admiration and adoration of my family all focused on my little boy is really meaningful for me. After dinner we head back to our hotel room. He runs more wind sprints in the hallway and again, sleeps through the night. On our last day, we head to the New England Aquarium. We look at all the fish. Alexander’s attention span is limited, so we move very quickly from penguins to eels to sharks. He seems highly motivated to get me into the gift shop so he can get a treat. When we get back on the plane to head home Alexander is great. He looks out the window the whole time, clutching the new stuffed animal I got him. As somebody who’s been meditating for nearly a decade now, I’ve had many moments during this trip where I’m really glad to have the training because I’m able to just tune in to how, for lack of a less cheesy word, how sweet this experience is. I love this kid. Obviously, every parent loves their child. But especially given the fact that I'm an older dad, I’m 47, and given everything Bianca and I went through to get this kid, this whole situation is especially poignant. When Bianca and I first had Alexander, I remember there being a whole tsunami of sentiment, both over email from my friends and on social media from people I didn’t know, where we were being told and exhorted to enjoy every moment, or cherish every moment. And I always wondered about that. Is this just a kind of perfunctory thing that people say or is it maybe based in some sort of remorse that they may feel about having let their kid’s childhood slip by without really taking it all in while it was happening? One of the many things meditation is designed to do is to wake you up and to help you be right here wherever you happen to be. Throughout the course of my jaunt with my son, there are a lot of little snapshots in my mind of him looking out the window as the plane flew; or watching him look at the penguins in the Aquarium or fiddle with legos at Legoland; or dance around, bagel in hand, while my family laughs. And in all of these moments I was really able to do the opposite of zoning out, I was able to zone in. And in my experience, that really amplifies the awesomeness quotient immeasurably. The self awareness that I’ve been able to generate, that anybody can generate, through meditation allows me to notice and accentuate joy. And it can provoke what I consider to be healthy reflection about the fact, the inarguable fact, that these moments are fleeting, so it’s best not to waste them by reflexively reaching for my iPhone or something. GUNATILLAKE: In this world of distractions, our minds have become so well trained to jump from one thing to another. You might even feel that pull right now. If so, can you rest and acknowledge how Dan's story is making you feel. Letting any enjoyment or appreciation sink in. HARRIS: I should say that there are a few moments during our trip where Alexander says he misses mommy. It hurts my feelings a bit, but I just do a version of what we’re told to do during meditation. Rather than denying or trying to paper over that his feelings exist, I get him to tune in to himself. I ask him: “How does missing mommy make him feel? Sad?” And if he says yes, which he usually does, I say “It’s ok to feel sad, I get it. But we’re going to see her very soon. And in the meantime, we’re gonna have fun.” Generally speaking, this works like a charm. When we finally get home and ride the elevator up to our apartment, I prepare to tell his mother about what an amazing job Alexander did. Within minutes though, pretty much as soon as he’s around his mother again, he has a temper tantrum. Not at me, it’s directed quite squarely at her. This speaks, in my view, to the impenetrable bond he has with her and it actually makes me feel like this whole dynamic among the three of us is less about me and more about the fact that many children simply have intense relationships with their mothers. And you know what, I think it’s great that they have this bond. It’s now clear that there’s nothing for me to feel jealous or resentful about. Clearly, the move here, is just for me to make time for Alexander and I to interact one on one, so we can build our own relationship. And I think our boys trip really helped on that front. Interrupting the patterns, the grooves, in our everyday lives created new space for us to relate to one another differently. We’re building our own repertoire of private jokes and secret memories, mostly involving my allowing him to have more chocolate than mommy does. So I’ve decided that I'm going to do it again. We're already talking about going down to Florida together. I've also learned my lesson about the crazy hair in the mornings. Now, when I wake up, many days I put water in my hair so I look better for him. That has also helped. Oh, and the other day, he told me that he has now decided that daddy is, henceforth, allowed to put him to bed. So I’m finally on par with our cat Ruby. GUNATILLAKE: Parenting is hard. Given that my own eldest child, a boy, is pretty much the same age as Alexander, there’s a lot that I recognize in Dan’s story, the importance of stepping out of everyday routines in order to connect. But of all the themes, the one that stands out the most for me is the simple power of time spent together. When there’s disconnection, we solve it by connecting. Letting time and attention do their work. Attention and connection are in their own way the heart of meditation. So since you’re here, why not join me in a short meditation inspired by Dan’s story. It’ll be in two parts and we’ll start here, just as you are. Whatever position your body is in, if you’re moving or still, take a breath. Take two. Take as many as you want. If it’s been one of those days, why not sigh? Letting the sound drain away any tension that you might have been holding. And in this first part of the meditation, the idea is to just rest your attention with the body. No need to fixate on any area in particular, instead just resting, being aware of the body as a whole. Giving it your attention. Connecting. Letting the whole body, however it is, fill your awareness, soaking up your attention. As you do so, there will be flickers away from your connection with the body – times when particular sensations, thoughts, feelings come in and takeover. As with Dan, these might include doubt, judgement, boredom, worry, tiredness. It’s ok. Whenever you notice your connection with your overall sense of the body break, just come back and start again. Bringing the attention back. Reconnecting. Ok, now that you’re hopefully feeling a bit more grounded let’s move into the second part of the meditation. What I’d like you to do is to bring someone to mind that you wish you could spend more time with. For Dan it was his son. For me it’s my eldest sister. Who is it for you? There’s no right answer, but in my experience the first person you think of is probably the best person to go with. If you’re a visual person, you can picture an image of them. But if, like me, you don’t have too much of a visual mind, just recall something about them, an event, a feeling, a story, an image without pictures. Whatever helps bring them to mind, whatever helps bring them into your awareness. And this is where we’ll rest. Keeping your person in mind, spending time with the image of them. It might feel totally contrived, totally fake. That’s ok. It can be like that sometimes. Just do it anyway. Bringing to mind the person you wish you could spend more time with and keeping them in awareness as much as you can. As you do this, all sorts of thoughts may come up. Thoughts of regret, self-judgement, doubt. Thoughts of delight, happiness and joy as you feel touched by them. They’re all ok. We do the best we can, you know. Let this gentle attention towards your dear person forge a real sense of connection. They might be far away, they might be in the next room. You might have seen them just five minutes ago, or it could have been decades. It’s all ok. Your body relaxed. Your breathing gentle. Your special person in mind. Filling your mind. Feeling the charge between you. Trusting the quality of your wish to spend more time with them. Deepening your connection. Just as Dan did with Alexander.
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Michelle Thaller
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
"Fighting can help you find out who you are; the ring a place of real vulnerability; your only weapons, your only allies: your body, your training, and your instincts. Meditation is also a space where we become exposed. Willingly. Letting our physical being, our thoughts, our habits, the contents of our minds be revealed."
About Thomas Page McBee
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Thomas Page McBee
From the closing meditation
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Fighting my fears – and winning in spite of losing
TRANSFORMATION
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE: I’m losing now, but I feel weightless, and strangely free. This moment is a gift. I have nothing to prove. I feel shameless. I don’t back down but I also don’t give in to my worst self. Eric gives me the most perfect moment of my life. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: The boxing ring may seem like the last place to find calmness and compassion. However it’s precisely there where today’s Meditative Story takes us. Thomas Page McBee is a transgender writer who found answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting, and along the way discovered what happens when you stop trying to win. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. There’s a real drama, a real intensity to those moments before a boxing match, isn’t there? The fighters waiting for their names to be called. Waiting. Ready. Hyped. Notice the level of energy in your body, whatever it is. Any areas of vibration, areas of stillness. Heat and cool. Dropping any thoughts of elsewhere and trusting our instincts and our abilities. Alert, here, ready to go. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MCBEE: To ground myself in this moment, I bite down hard on my mouth guard. Then, when the roving spotlight finds me, I make my way down the aisle toward the ring – at the heart of the most storied sporting venue on Earth. This is Madison Square Garden – and I’m the first trans man to ever fight in it. An amateur in every sense of the word. “Thomas McBEAST McBee,” the announcer says. I swing myself between the ropes, and hop up and down on the soft mat, my gloved hands in the air. The blurry crowd cheers, amused. I am not a boxer, not really. I’m a 34-year-old writer. Last summer, when I pitched my editor a story about me learning how to fight, it’s because I want to box in order to unpack the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. I’d only been a man for all the world for four years, but my experience with male violence has been lifelong. My worst fear is that I’m destined to be as toxic as the abusive man who raised me. This isn’t just about boxing. This is about looking my worst fears in the face. For five months, I spend every spare minute training in a dank basement gym near Wall Street, soundtracked by hip-hop and the thwack of gloves hitting bags and faces. What I find there is surprising. As I jump rope and hit heavy bags and learn the language of boxing, I discover a beautiful ballet beneath the posturing. There’s an intimacy in the gym that exposes fighters to their vulnerabilities as much as their strengths. I get to know myself in those hours of relentless discipline, and I get to know the other men too. I learn that I’ve got a good chin, which means I can take a punch and shake it off. “You’ve got a lot of heart,” a grizzled old fighter tells me. It’s boxing’s biggest compliment. For the first time, I can see it. These men reflect me back to myself. They see me at my most scared, and they never stop believing in me. Here they are now, Stephen, Kenny and Ed, gathering ringside to watch. As I extend a glove toward them, they holler encouragement my way. Then I turn away from them, and bring my focus back into the ring. My opponent, Eric, enters to his fight song. My coach, Danny, steps up into the ring, and puts his face close to mine. Everything else falls away. We lock eyes as Danny gives me water, tightens my head gear, and checks the laces on my gloves. “You got this, Tommy,” he says. His voice is all I can hear, and then he’s gone, retreating back behind the ropes. I size up my opponent, who’s squat and thick. He walloped me in our qualifying spar a couple of months ago, and I know he thinks that I’ll be easily defeated. The bell rings and I advance toward him, squeezing the rough innards of my gloves, narrowing my focus in an animal way. I know there’s cheering, but exterior sound is sucked out of the ring. I hear nothing in the vacuum but my heartbeat, my breath, the squeak of our shoes. I see nothing but his eyes over his gloves. GUNATILLAKE: Can you imagine being there, looking through Thomas's eyes? See his opponent, the movement of his feet dancing, the color of his gloves. Notice the four rows of ropes and the posts making up the ring around you, notice the blur of the crowd behind them. MCBEE: In the first round, I channel my aggression, keeping it hot but not letting it overtake me. I register the occasional cheer of the crowd, but the sound mostly hangs on the periphery of my narrowed senses. I see the defeated slump of my opponent’s shoulders. The ref gives him a standing eight count. The cheers pour back in. I raise my hands in the air and dance around the ring, welcoming this moment in the sun, even if it is at Eric’s expense. I’d spent my whole life afraid of men. As I circle Eric, the tang of our sweat thick and twinned, I realize in that moment – that moment when I’m winning – that all I want is to see that I have nothing to fear. I’ve taught my body exactly how to fight back. Even as I charge him, I feel a surge of kindness toward him. I can feel myself letting go of the need to win. I can see, in the way he squares his shoulders and takes wilder and wilder shots, that the outcome that no longer matters to me, means the world to him. His pride is wounded and I realize that, no matter what happens, mine can’t be. I don’t stake my masculinity on this fight. My gender has nothing to do with winning. My masculinity is my own. GUNATILLAKE: Can you sense the freedom? The freedom that Thomas feels that whatever happens ultimately won’t affect his sense of himself. Where do you sense that feeling of letting go in your body? Let go. MCBEE: At the bell, I return to my corner, and sound floods back in. Danny makes me raise my hands in the air. “That was fucking perfect,” he marvels. The guys ringside jump up and down. The bell rings again, round two. The crowd, sensing a comeback, cheers wildly. In their eyes, Eric’s the underdog. I’m the villain. He’s newly energized. I watch him re-inflate, find his power, and it’s oddly beautiful. To win, I have to find a way to hate him, and I can’t. Boxing is karmic that way. I had my moment. Now it’s his. The crowd seeps back in, calling his name. I see a smile curl his mouth. He’s leaning in for the win. But I can’t summon the same dark impulse, and I’m at peace with that. I’m losing now, but I feel weightless, and strangely free. This moment is a gift. I have nothing to prove. I feel shameless. I don’t back down but I also don’t give in to my worst self. Eric gives me the most perfect moment of my life. I retreat to my corner when the bell rings, and try to pay attention to Danny, who’s talking in a steady stream boxing clichés: Don’t gas out, get in and out, bunches of punches. But his words are less comforting than his voice, a tether as he wipes my face, and takes care of me. I take in the crowd again, their faces a drunken, bloodthirsty blur. I want a burger. I want to hug my girlfriend. I want to be gentle with myself. I’m alive. I’m alive. Danny calls my name and brings me back: “Tommy!” I look back at him and smile. He hits me lightly on the top of my head. It’s round three. The last round is a wheeling, spinning, spangle of color and sound. I hear the crowd again, shouting: “E-ric, E-ric, E-ric.” It’s a comeback story for them, I can see that – and the story isn’t mine. But we’re in this together, Eric and I, bonded. As we run down the last two minutes, exhausted, our headgear askew, I love him, I really do. As the last bell rings, I raise my hands high in the air and walk back toward my corner. For the first time since I can remember, my future feels expansive and bright. We remove our gloves and meet in the center of the ring, both of us slick with sweat. The ref stands between us, holding both of our hands, and I keep my other one in the air even as they announce that Eric’s won. GUNATILLAKE: What posture are you in right now? As the two fighters raise their arms in victory, what quality does your posture symbolize? Can you feel a connection with the people and space around you, just as Thomas did? MCBEE: They say that you find out who you are in the ring, when you’re stripped of pretense and exposed, with only your body and your instincts to define you. I think that’s true. Fighting is a natural response to threat, and we’re all capable of standing up for ourselves when it counts. Winning, however, is more subjective than it might appear. A fighter fights himself, as my coach always says. I fought my fears. As they call Eric’s name, I turn toward him, and hug him tight. I’m so happy for him. “I didn’t win,” I think to myself, as I walk back to my corner. But I won. GUNATILLAKE: Boxing and meditation are perhaps not as different from each other as you might have thought before hearing Thomas’ story. Thomas speaks rather beautifully about how fighting can help you find out who you are, the ring a place of real vulnerability, your only weapons, your only allies, your body, your training and your instincts. Meditation is also a space where we become exposed. Willingly. Letting our physical being, our thoughts, our habits, the contents of our minds be revealed. And it’s not always pretty. While the popular idea is that meditation is all relaxation and bliss, rainbows and fluffy bunnies, to be honest, most of the time it’s anything but. It can sometimes be a real struggle. Physical discomfort. Negative thoughts. Patterns of mind that perhaps we once suppressed, rising back into our awareness. But it’s ok. With time, and with skill, like Thomas we learn when we need to advance, and when to drop back. Like Thomas, we learn to dance. So let’s meditate. Let’s dance. Eyes open or eyes closed, it’s up to you. Whichever makes most sense, and makes you most safe. Tuning into breathing. Whether it’s in the belly, the chest, or elsewhere, just become aware of your breathing. If it helps, you can put your hand on your belly for a stronger connection. Breathing. Your body just doing it by itself. Ok. Now notice where you are aware of some tension or agitation in the body. Whether it’s been a long day already or if you’ve only just got up, you’ll most likely have some kind of tightness or discomfort along the front of the body: the chest, the stomach, the neck, the jaw. Or along the back of the body: the shoulders, the upper back, the lower back. Drop the breath and instead move to the area of discomfort that is most calling for your attention right now. Again, only doing this if it feels safe to do.For me right now, it’s a sensation of real tension and uncomfortable heat in my shoulders. What is it for you? With our attention, our awareness here on this difficult sensation, can you notice how you’re reacting to the sensation? Are you pushing it away? Are you wishing it wasn’t here? Are you fighting it? It was such a beautiful moment in Thomas’s story when – right in the middle of the fight – he dropped the need to win. He continued to fight but he did so with love for his opponent and his victory was assured. Inspired by Thomas, let’s do the same. While still feeling the intensity of whatever physical discomfort most stands out for us right now, can we drop the struggle? Still feeling it in all its detail, but letting it be there, not pushing it away. Being with the difficult, not ignoring it. Loving it and all its glory, not fighting it. There are two general approaches one can take in meditation. The first is to place our mind somewhere lovely, and let ourselves be nourished and refreshed by the pleasure – however gentle – that brings. That’s a wonderful way to do meditation and at the right time, just what we need. But it’s not transformative, since the inevitable difficulties of life are still around, just not being given attention. So the other approach is to look directly at the difficult. To bring it into our awareness, to know it, to learn from it – and yes, even to love it. It’s the harder road. But as Thomas showed us in his story, it’s the road where the greatest victories are won. Be well.
THOMAS'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Life and love and the moment
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THOMAS PAGE MCBEE
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Life and love and the moment
DAN HARRIS
THOMAS'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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Thomas Page McBee is the author of the Lambda award-winning memoir Man Alive. His second book, Amateur, a reported memoir about learning how to box in order to understand masculinity’s tie to violence, was named a best book of 2018 by many publications. McBee was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, a “masculinity expert” for VICE, and the author of the columns “Self-Made Man” for the Rumpus, “The American Man” for Pacific Standard, and “Amateur” for Condé Nast's Them. His current column, Boys to Men, features honest conversations about masculinity for Teen Vogue. A former senior editor at Quartz, his essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, Glamour, Out, The Cut, and more. Learn more about Thomas Page McBee here.
From the closing meditation
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE: I’m losing now, but I feel weightless, and strangely free. This moment is a gift. I have nothing to prove. I feel shameless. I don’t back down but I also don’t give in to my worst self. Eric gives me the most perfect moment of my life. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: The boxing ring may seem like the last place to find calmness and compassion. However it’s precisely there where today’s Meditative Story takes us. Thomas Page McBee is a transgender writer who found answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting, and along the way discovered what happens when you stop trying to win. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. There’s a real drama, a real intensity to those moments before a boxing match, isn’t there? The fighters waiting for their names to be called. Waiting. Ready. Hyped. Notice the level of energy in your body, whatever it is. Any areas of vibration, areas of stillness. Heat and cool. Dropping any thoughts of elsewhere and trusting our instincts and our abilities. Alert, here, ready to go. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MCBEE: To ground myself in this moment, I bite down hard on my mouth guard. Then, when the roving spotlight finds me, I make my way down the aisle toward the ring – at the heart of the most storied sporting venue on Earth. This is Madison Square Garden – and I’m the first trans man to ever fight in it. An amateur in every sense of the word. “Thomas McBEAST McBee,” the announcer says. I swing myself between the ropes, and hop up and down on the soft mat, my gloved hands in the air. The blurry crowd cheers, amused. I am not a boxer, not really. I’m a 34-year-old writer. Last summer, when I pitched my editor a story about me learning how to fight, it’s because I want to box in order to unpack the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence. I’d only been a man for all the world for four years, but my experience with male violence has been lifelong. My worst fear is that I’m destined to be as toxic as the abusive man who raised me. This isn’t just about boxing. This is about looking my worst fears in the face. For five months, I spend every spare minute training in a dank basement gym near Wall Street, soundtracked by hip-hop and the thwack of gloves hitting bags and faces. What I find there is surprising. As I jump rope and hit heavy bags and learn the language of boxing, I discover a beautiful ballet beneath the posturing. There’s an intimacy in the gym that exposes fighters to their vulnerabilities as much as their strengths. I get to know myself in those hours of relentless discipline, and I get to know the other men too. I learn that I’ve got a good chin, which means I can take a punch and shake it off. “You’ve got a lot of heart,” a grizzled old fighter tells me. It’s boxing’s biggest compliment. For the first time, I can see it. These men reflect me back to myself. They see me at my most scared, and they never stop believing in me. Here they are now, Stephen, Kenny and Ed, gathering ringside to watch. As I extend a glove toward them, they holler encouragement my way. Then I turn away from them, and bring my focus back into the ring. My opponent, Eric, enters to his fight song. My coach, Danny, steps up into the ring, and puts his face close to mine. Everything else falls away. We lock eyes as Danny gives me water, tightens my head gear, and checks the laces on my gloves. “You got this, Tommy,” he says. His voice is all I can hear, and then he’s gone, retreating back behind the ropes. I size up my opponent, who’s squat and thick. He walloped me in our qualifying spar a couple of months ago, and I know he thinks that I’ll be easily defeated. The bell rings and I advance toward him, squeezing the rough innards of my gloves, narrowing my focus in an animal way. I know there’s cheering, but exterior sound is sucked out of the ring. I hear nothing in the vacuum but my heartbeat, my breath, the squeak of our shoes. I see nothing but his eyes over his gloves. GUNATILLAKE: Can you imagine being there, looking through Thomas's eyes? See his opponent, the movement of his feet dancing, the color of his gloves. Notice the four rows of ropes and the posts making up the ring around you, notice the blur of the crowd behind them. MCBEE: In the first round, I channel my aggression, keeping it hot but not letting it overtake me. I register the occasional cheer of the crowd, but the sound mostly hangs on the periphery of my narrowed senses. I see the defeated slump of my opponent’s shoulders. The ref gives him a standing eight count. The cheers pour back in. I raise my hands in the air and dance around the ring, welcoming this moment in the sun, even if it is at Eric’s expense. I’d spent my whole life afraid of men. As I circle Eric, the tang of our sweat thick and twinned, I realize in that moment – that moment when I’m winning – that all I want is to see that I have nothing to fear. I’ve taught my body exactly how to fight back. Even as I charge him, I feel a surge of kindness toward him. I can feel myself letting go of the need to win. I can see, in the way he squares his shoulders and takes wilder and wilder shots, that the outcome that no longer matters to me, means the world to him. His pride is wounded and I realize that, no matter what happens, mine can’t be. I don’t stake my masculinity on this fight. My gender has nothing to do with winning. My masculinity is my own. GUNATILLAKE: Can you sense the freedom? The freedom that Thomas feels that whatever happens ultimately won’t affect his sense of himself. Where do you sense that feeling of letting go in your body? Let go. MCBEE: At the bell, I return to my corner, and sound floods back in. Danny makes me raise my hands in the air. “That was fucking perfect,” he marvels. The guys ringside jump up and down. The bell rings again, round two. The crowd, sensing a comeback, cheers wildly. In their eyes, Eric’s the underdog. I’m the villain. He’s newly energized. I watch him re-inflate, find his power, and it’s oddly beautiful. To win, I have to find a way to hate him, and I can’t. Boxing is karmic that way. I had my moment. Now it’s his. The crowd seeps back in, calling his name. I see a smile curl his mouth. He’s leaning in for the win. But I can’t summon the same dark impulse, and I’m at peace with that. I’m losing now, but I feel weightless, and strangely free. This moment is a gift. I have nothing to prove. I feel shameless. I don’t back down but I also don’t give in to my worst self. Eric gives me the most perfect moment of my life. I retreat to my corner when the bell rings, and try to pay attention to Danny, who’s talking in a steady stream boxing clichés: Don’t gas out, get in and out, bunches of punches. But his words are less comforting than his voice, a tether as he wipes my face, and takes care of me. I take in the crowd again, their faces a drunken, bloodthirsty blur. I want a burger. I want to hug my girlfriend. I want to be gentle with myself. I’m alive. I’m alive. Danny calls my name and brings me back: “Tommy!” I look back at him and smile. He hits me lightly on the top of my head. It’s round three. The last round is a wheeling, spinning, spangle of color and sound. I hear the crowd again, shouting: “E-ric, E-ric, E-ric.” It’s a comeback story for them, I can see that – and the story isn’t mine. But we’re in this together, Eric and I, bonded. As we run down the last two minutes, exhausted, our headgear askew, I love him, I really do. As the last bell rings, I raise my hands high in the air and walk back toward my corner. For the first time since I can remember, my future feels expansive and bright. We remove our gloves and meet in the center of the ring, both of us slick with sweat. The ref stands between us, holding both of our hands, and I keep my other one in the air even as they announce that Eric’s won. GUNATILLAKE: What posture are you in right now? As the two fighters raise their arms in victory, what quality does your posture symbolize? Can you feel a connection with the people and space around you, just as Thomas did? MCBEE: They say that you find out who you are in the ring, when you’re stripped of pretense and exposed, with only your body and your instincts to define you. I think that’s true. Fighting is a natural response to threat, and we’re all capable of standing up for ourselves when it counts. Winning, however, is more subjective than it might appear. A fighter fights himself, as my coach always says. I fought my fears. As they call Eric’s name, I turn toward him, and hug him tight. I’m so happy for him. “I didn’t win,” I think to myself, as I walk back to my corner. But I won. GUNATILLAKE: Boxing and meditation are perhaps not as different from each other as you might have thought before hearing Thomas’ story. Thomas speaks rather beautifully about how fighting can help you find out who you are, the ring a place of real vulnerability, your only weapons, your only allies, your body, your training and your instincts. Meditation is also a space where we become exposed. Willingly. Letting our physical being, our thoughts, our habits, the contents of our minds be revealed. And it’s not always pretty. While the popular idea is that meditation is all relaxation and bliss, rainbows and fluffy bunnies, to be honest, most of the time it’s anything but. It can sometimes be a real struggle. Physical discomfort. Negative thoughts. Patterns of mind that perhaps we once suppressed, rising back into our awareness. But it’s ok. With time, and with skill, like Thomas we learn when we need to advance, and when to drop back. Like Thomas, we learn to dance. So let’s meditate. Let’s dance. Eyes open or eyes closed, it’s up to you. Whichever makes most sense, and makes you most safe. Tuning into breathing. Whether it’s in the belly, the chest, or elsewhere, just become aware of your breathing. If it helps, you can put your hand on your belly for a stronger connection. Breathing. Your body just doing it by itself. Ok. Now notice where you are aware of some tension or agitation in the body. Whether it’s been a long day already or if you’ve only just got up, you’ll most likely have some kind of tightness or discomfort along the front of the body: the chest, the stomach, the neck, the jaw. Or along the back of the body: the shoulders, the upper back, the lower back. Drop the breath and instead move to the area of discomfort that is most calling for your attention right now. Again, only doing this if it feels safe to do.For me right now, it’s a sensation of real tension and uncomfortable heat in my shoulders. What is it for you? With our attention, our awareness here on this difficult sensation, can you notice how you’re reacting to the sensation? Are you pushing it away? Are you wishing it wasn’t here? Are you fighting it? It was such a beautiful moment in Thomas’s story when – right in the middle of the fight – he dropped the need to win. He continued to fight but he did so with love for his opponent and his victory was assured. Inspired by Thomas, let’s do the same. While still feeling the intensity of whatever physical discomfort most stands out for us right now, can we drop the struggle? Still feeling it in all its detail, but letting it be there, not pushing it away. Being with the difficult, not ignoring it. Loving it and all its glory, not fighting it. There are two general approaches one can take in meditation. The first is to place our mind somewhere lovely, and let ourselves be nourished and refreshed by the pleasure – however gentle – that brings. That’s a wonderful way to do meditation and at the right time, just what we need. But it’s not transformative, since the inevitable difficulties of life are still around, just not being given attention. So the other approach is to look directly at the difficult. To bring it into our awareness, to know it, to learn from it – and yes, even to love it. It’s the harder road. But as Thomas showed us in his story, it’s the road where the greatest victories are won. Be well.
CLARITY
Thomas Page McBee
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Episode Transcript
Fighting my fears – and winning in spite of losing
Thomas Page McBee is an author and a journalist – and was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden. But that fight, born out of a pitch to editors, wasn't about overpowering an opponent. It was about confronting his own fears – of masculinity, of aggression and inadequacy – and winning.
Author and journalist Thomas Page McBee takes us into the boxing ring at Madison Square Garden, where he finds answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting – and along the way discovers what happens when you stop trying to win.
Arianna Huffington
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Thomas Page McBee is the author of the Lambda award-winning memoir Man Alive. His second book, Amateur, a reported memoir about learning how to box in order to understand masculinity’s tie to violence, was named a best book of 2018 by many publications. McBee was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, a “masculinity expert” for VICE, and the author of the columns “Self-Made Man” for the Rumpus, “The American Man” for Pacific Standard, and “Amateur” for Condé Nast's Them. His current column, Boys to Men, features honest conversations about masculinity for Teen Vogue. A former senior editor at Quartz, his essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, Glamour, Out, The Cut, and more. Learn more about Thomas Page McBee here.
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Author and journalist Thomas Page McBee takes us into the boxing ring at Madison Square Garden, where he finds answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting – and along the way discovers what happens when you stop trying to win.
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
PRESENCE
Episode Transcript
About Thomas Page McBee
PRESENCE
Arianna Huffington
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE
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Thomas Page McBee is an author and a journalist – and was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden. But that fight, born out of a pitch to editors, wasn't about overpowering an opponent. It was about confronting his own fears – of masculinity, of aggression and inadequacy – and winning.
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Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
KRISTA TIPPETT: Looking back, if I could change something, I wish I’d been kinder to myself all along. A year or so ago, I was telling someone this story of my 20s and they said: “How did you get to be so brave?” And I realized I’d never given myself any credit for being brave. I was always second guessing myself or planning what I had to do next. I didn’t give myself credit for how far I’d come and all the experiences I’d had. And I think it was brave. And I need to honor the bravery in myself so I can honor it in others. This bravery is not about being fearless, because I wasn’t fearless. But in walking with the fear – and through it when everything I thought I knew turned out to be flimsy and questionable. And as I walked through it all, there was revelation, and there was confusion, and there was discovery. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Where for you, is the most beautiful place in the world? For Krista Tippett it’s a Spanish Island village in the Mediterranean Sea. Krista Tippett is a journalist, former diplomat, and the long-time host of “On Being”. Today, she shares a story of when she took a break from the intensity of her life and just stopped to check in with herself. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with brief mindfulness prompts from me. I’m Rohan, your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. Let’s take a moment to check in, to listen to ourselves. Just letting your inner life be what it is in this moment, and knowing it just as it is. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. TIPPETT: I spent most of my 20s in divided cold war in Berlin. It was the 1980’s. I was a thoroughly political person. I went there as a New York Times stringer, but for my last year and a half I was chief aide in West Berlin to the US ambassador to West Germany; a nuclear arms expert, a Reagan appointee. I'm sitting around tables with people who move thousands of missiles around on a map of Europe as though it were a gameboard. Arms experts and foreign policy specialists, and people who have the ears of world leaders and who are defining policy around these weapons of mass destruction. I’m very close to genuine power and I’m aware of it in this room. It’s kind of incomprehensible. There's an exhilaration to it, and there's a seductiveness to it – and there's an emptiness to it at the same time. It's very exciting when I first walk into the room, but then the longer I stay, at some level, I am profoundly bored by all of this. I don’t think this is how I should feel. On the other side of the wall, in East Berlin, I travel to visit beloved friends in their apartment on the Chausseestrasse, a legendary street in Berlin’s history. They live in this apartment building where a famous dissident had lived. It has the history of East Germany in it and then it also wears a history of vanished Germanies. It feels ancient and a bit tumbledown in this chapter, forty years into communism. My friends are artists. And the apartment is crowded and overflowing with half-finished paintings and musical instruments, and the world of their daughters – and just full of life and chaos. It’s warm and alive and everything in here matters. Everything we talk about really matters: friendships and words, food and pleasure, and whatever joy you can extract together. In the living room there’s a life sized bust of a mutual friend of ours, a poet who became so uncomfortable to the government that they banished him across the Wall. He’s twenty minutes away from, but they believe, and I believe, that none of us will ever see him again. So there’s grief in this apartment too, and longing, and love. It makes me realize that I’ve come to the end of what I can get out of my work in West Berlin. I long to get away and think all of this through: politics and its extremes and its limits. I don’t actually have space in my life literally or even contemplatively. On the one hand, my life here is full of ideas, but on the other hand it isn’t full of a depth of thoughtfulness. I know I’ve had an incredible experience here, but it’s time for me to move on. GUNATILLAKE: Do you ever feel like you don't have space? Perhaps you're in a phase of your life where that's true right now. If it helps, take a moment to feel your feet on the ground, open out your chest. Relief is available in every moment when we remember to turn to it. TIPPETT: It’s the summer of 1988, the year before the Wall comes down. No one can fathom that. And as desperate as I am to step away to make sense, I think I have to do something that sounds impressive. I give myself a four to five month stretch before I plan to head back to D.C. and more politics in the US. And I set off to write a novel. I decide to go to the most beautiful place I've ever been in the world, this little village on Majorca called Deia. It’s not overrun by tourists. It’s a really eccentric, hard to get to, artists colony with a lot of expatriates. I found it through a journalist friend and fell in love with it. It’s so lush, and fragrant. There’s so much color, so many flowers. You're crunching almonds under your feet as you walk around. The beach is a mile’s hike, no road goes there, and it’s amazing. In my memory the journalist’s house is kind of like a castle and I have this romantic vision of going there to settle into myself and be creative and reflect. “I'm going to write my novel here.” But then shortly before I’m to arrive, the very charismatic journalist dies suddenly, of a heart attack. His widow offers to find me another place to live, and she does – but my idyllic vision is shattered. I had the perfect plan and now it’s coming apart. It all feels doomed and I feel very alone and adrift. But she connects me with this man named Robert who has a room in his house for rent. He’s an English accountant who retired to Deia to tend his garden and restore rare books. I arrive and take a taxi to Robert’s house. It all feels very disorienting. I have the directions for where I’m supposed to go but it’s just a spot on the road. There’s no driveway or mailbox. The car stops and Robert is there to meet me. He appears to me this first time, I meet him as a grizzled man. He looks bedraggled and a little bit unsafe. He's missing a tooth or two and he has berry juice stains on his chin and his clothes. And there’s not exactly a path to his house; we kind of fight our way down a hill beneath the road through the brush. And I think, “Who is this person? Where I am I? What have I done?” We finally reach the house and it’s so simple, but really so smart and sturdy. Nothing fancy but elegant. Amazing really. There’s a nobility to it, and a peacefulness to it. It’s just falling off the side of a mountain. I don’t actually know how it stays attached to the Earth. The house is just an add-on to the garden, which is wild and magical. Robert sleeps in a hammock on the porch outside his bedroom every night. And I stay in a very simple room at the other side of the house. Everything is stone. Nothing fancy, but it’s perfect. I love it. I have a nice bed, and a little desk, and a tiny window. My view of the mountains is like a postcard and it is exquisite. The minute I walk in, the very first time, I think to myself, “I’m going to be really happy in this room.” And I am. GUNATILLAKE: Can you catch the fragrance of the flowers in the garden? The mountains and their majesty keeping everything in perspective. Take it in for a moment. Let go. TIPPETT: In Deia, I realize how exhausted I am and I how I hadn't been letting myself feel that. This stranger, Robert, in his mid 70s, nurses me back to health. I didn’t know I needed somebody to do that for me. He bakes bread from scratch every day and he makes everything out of his garden, these incredible salads where every ingredient is plucked straight from the ground. And there’s always a little dirt left in. He recommends books I’ve never read and gives me a cassette tape of Beethoven's late quartets. It becomes the soundtrack of my summer. I write all day, every day, on a schedule, but at lunchtime and in the evening I sit in the garden looking at the mountain and listening to this music. I get quiet for the first time in about 10 years. I start to pray, without calling it that at first. It takes me a while to figure out, but eventually I realize that sitting in this garden is actually the whole point of being here. This place isn’t on any of the maps that I'd been dealing with in Berlin. But it’s real, and it’s solid, and it matters. People are creating lives here that are as significant as those sitting around a conference table. And it’s a relief, because I think part of the reason I wasn’t able to imagine life beyond that career is that it felt like, if I could do that, which was so important, then how could I walk away from it? Sitting here, I remember that the world is complex and strange and that there's importance all over the place, different forms of importance. Coming out of that, getting quiet, I begin to open up to my inner life again. I ask the questions I need to ask about that world of high policy and why it’s wrong for me. It scares me to imagine the future differently, but I like myself so much more and I like myself in my body so much better sitting in this garden. It’s not about power in that sense. Being here leads me onto this whole other way forward. It leads me to what I do now. When I was in Berlin, it was all very exciting. Diplomatic dinner parties. Adventures half-way across the world. But also long, long days of work. It was very intense. My work absolutely bled into my life. There was no separation and absolutely no value placed on the rest of my life – or in ever getting away. What’s so striking to me now when I look back is how completely lacking in self awareness I was. How, in that life I was leading, it would have felt nonsensical to question it. Wearing myself into exhaustion was inevitable. I was so focused on accomplishment. Now I’m amidst the incredible beauty of the natural world in Deia, with this completely unexpected person in my life, and his generosity and kindness. The power of that. It’s an experience of hospitality. A human presence that has no interest in, ambition for, or goals of impressing. It creates this space for me that I hadn't been in, that maybe I'd never let myself be in. This is my turning point. I don't think I would have walked the direction I walked later if it weren’t for the time I spent in Robert’s garden. I wasn't expecting it and I wasn't looking for it. GUNATILLAKE: What would it take for you to do something unexpected? How do we find the courage to do the things we really need to do? It’s always worth being in silence, asking yourself that question and listening closely to the result. Maybe you can do that later today? TIPPETT: And there was something in that experience that flowed into everything I’ve done since. I wanted to make that possibility of reflection and restoration and life-giving questioning both more a part of my life but also more visible to others, more accessible. I think I had been asking this question all along: What do I want to do with my life? What kind of power do I care about exercising? What do I want to manifest in the world? Looking back, if I could change something, I wish I’d been kinder to myself all along. A year or so ago, I was telling someone this story of my 20s and they said: “How did you get to be so brave?” And I realized I’d never given myself any credit for being brave. I was always second guessing myself or planning what I had to do next. I didn’t give myself credit for how far I’d come and all the experiences I’d had. And I think it was brave. And I need to honor the bravery in myself so I can honor it in others. This bravery is not about being fearless, because I wasn’t fearless. But in walking with the fear – and through it, when everything I thought I knew turned out to be flimsy and questionable. And as I walked through it all, there was revelation, and there was confusion, and there was discovery. Now I see that I was on an adventure, all along. I think the thing that I did right was that I kept directing that adventure in generative ways. I wish I had been able to be a little bit more pleased and relax a little bit more into it and just enjoy it when it was fun, to take even more pleasure in the good days and the excitement of the questions and the excitement of discovery. I had stumbled on this strange mystery and reality that the only real power that sustains us we find inside ourselves – and in the care and company of others. GUNATILLAKE: What inspires me about Krista’s story is her ability to simply stop, which of course is not simple at all. Coming from the intensity of her time in Berlin to the quiet of Robert’s Mallorcan garden, she still held onto the idea of writing her novel. But that plan soon vanishes and Krista truly stops trying to achieve, lets go, and opens up. The same can happen in meditation. Even though it’s most associated with relaxation and letting go, many people still bring the mindset of achievement and goals to their practice. And while that can take you some way, there comes a point when you have to let go of all that. There even comes a time when you have to let go of the idea of a meditation technique. And that’s what we’re going to do today. No technique. Just meditation. No technique. Just mindful awareness. That’s what this meditation is all about. Pure, simple meditation practice. And just taking a short while to settle yourself in for it. Closing the eyes if it’s safe to do so. Relaxing the eyes if you’d rather have them open. Letting your back be upright. Your head sitting elegantly upon your neck. Letting the belly be relaxed. The belly soft and fluid. Committing yourself to this short period of meditation. Enjoying the luxury of time dedicated to mindfulness. And in this meditation we’ll drop technique, drop the need to do anything in particular, and just be here. Be where you are. Aware, alert, and alive. Nothing to do but be here and to be aware. Just here. Knowing what is happening while it is happening. Dropping all ideas of what meditation should be like, and just being present. And knowing what that’s like. Not making anything more important than anything else. Just here. And letting mindfulness just do its job. Letting everything be known. If you feel your mind has wandered away, remember that because we’re not looking at anything in particular, there’s nothing for it to wander away from. Just wakefulness. And what is known by that wakefulness. If you feel your mind has wandered away again, and then you remember you’re meditating, noticing that in that very moment there is mindfulness. Mindfulness re-establishing itself. Without you having to do anything. All you have to do is be here. Doing nothing. Alert and aware. Everything known. Nothing left out. Knowing what is happening as it happens, without judgement. And if judgement arises, allowing that, knowing that. However your body is. Simple. Relaxed. Open. Aware. Just here. Not doing anything. Just here. Not chasing after experience. Just here. Leaving everything alone. And if thoughts arise, no need to go out to them and get caught up. No need to give them any more fuel. Just resting. And letting everything happen. Just being aware, just watching, whatever there is to be watched. Enjoying the stillness of just being here. Enjoying whatever silence there might be. And when there’s noise, knowing that too and letting it be here. Celebrating the fact that you have awareness at all. And letting it be free. Just here. Upright. Relaxed. And alert. Dropping all techniques. Dropping all notions of what meditation should or shouldn’t be like. And just resting in awareness. Not doing anything. Enjoying non-doing. Simple. Here. And now. And if mindfulness slips away, noticing that the very moment you notice that, mindfulness is right there. Arising by itself. A natural quality of your mind. Just here. Allowing all experience. Nothing special. Everything special. Everything special in Robert’s garden.
Krista Tippett is an American journalist, author, and entrepreneur. She created and hosts the public radio program and podcast "On Being." She started her career at The New York Times bureau in Bonn in divided Berlin in the '80s, where she established herself as a freelance foreign correspondent. She reported and wrote for The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and Die Zeit. In the late '80s, Tippett served as chief aide in Berlin to the U.S. ambassador to West Germany. After her time there, Tippett received a Masters of Divinity from Yale University, which ultimately led her to the the idea for "On Being."
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ACCEPTANCE
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Krista Tippett is an American journalist, author, and entrepreneur. She created and hosts the public radio program and podcast "On Being." She started her career at The New York Times bureau in Bonn in divided Berlin in the '80s, where she established herself as a freelance foreign correspondent. She reported and wrote for The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and Die Zeit. In the late '80s, Tippett served as chief aide in Berlin to the U.S. ambassador to West Germany. After her time there, Tippett received a Masters of Divinity from Yale University, which ultimately led her to the the idea for "On Being."
Episode Transcript
I let go of my plan — and found myself
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CLARITY
Krista Tippett, the host of "On Being," talks about the time she took a break from the intensity of life and just stopped to check in with herself – with deeply unexpected results.
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Krista Tippett’s early years aren't what you’d expect knowing who she is today. As a journalist and political aide in divided Berlin in the '80s, Krista Tippett led a life of importance, where she was surrounded by power, where every decision mattered. But when a window opened to step away from that heady life, she found a new space – and time to ask herself what really, truly mattered. She shares her story to remind us how we can find meaning in unexpected places.
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
Arianna Huffington
PRESENCE
Krista Tippett
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
From the closing meditation
KRISTA TIPPETT
Life and love and the moment
Arianna Huffington
ACCEPTANCE
About Krista Tippett
KRISTA TIPPETT: Looking back, if I could change something, I wish I’d been kinder to myself all along. A year or so ago, I was telling someone this story of my 20s and they said: “How did you get to be so brave?” And I realized I’d never given myself any credit for being brave. I was always second guessing myself or planning what I had to do next. I didn’t give myself credit for how far I’d come and all the experiences I’d had. And I think it was brave. And I need to honor the bravery in myself so I can honor it in others. This bravery is not about being fearless, because I wasn’t fearless. But in walking with the fear – and through it when everything I thought I knew turned out to be flimsy and questionable. And as I walked through it all, there was revelation, and there was confusion, and there was discovery. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Where for you, is the most beautiful place in the world? For Krista Tippett it’s a Spanish Island village in the Mediterranean Sea. Krista Tippett is a journalist, former diplomat, and the long-time host of “On Being”. Today, she shares a story of when she took a break from the intensity of her life and just stopped to check in with herself. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with brief mindfulness prompts from me. I’m Rohan, your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. Let’s take a moment to check in, to listen to ourselves. Just letting your inner life be what it is in this moment, and knowing it just as it is. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. TIPPETT: I spent most of my 20s in divided cold war in Berlin. It was the 1980’s. I was a thoroughly political person. I went there as a New York Times stringer, but for my last year and a half I was chief aide in West Berlin to the US ambassador to West Germany; a nuclear arms expert, a Reagan appointee. I'm sitting around tables with people who move thousands of missiles around on a map of Europe as though it were a gameboard. Arms experts and foreign policy specialists, and people who have the ears of world leaders and who are defining policy around these weapons of mass destruction. I’m very close to genuine power and I’m aware of it in this room. It’s kind of incomprehensible. There's an exhilaration to it, and there's a seductiveness to it – and there's an emptiness to it at the same time. It's very exciting when I first walk into the room, but then the longer I stay, at some level, I am profoundly bored by all of this. I don’t think this is how I should feel. On the other side of the wall, in East Berlin, I travel to visit beloved friends in their apartment on the Chausseestrasse, a legendary street in Berlin’s history. They live in this apartment building where a famous dissident had lived. It has the history of East Germany in it and then it also wears a history of vanished Germanies. It feels ancient and a bit tumbledown in this chapter, forty years into communism. My friends are artists. And the apartment is crowded and overflowing with half-finished paintings and musical instruments, and the world of their daughters – and just full of life and chaos. It’s warm and alive and everything in here matters. Everything we talk about really matters: friendships and words, food and pleasure, and whatever joy you can extract together. In the living room there’s a life sized bust of a mutual friend of ours, a poet who became so uncomfortable to the government that they banished him across the Wall. He’s twenty minutes away from, but they believe, and I believe, that none of us will ever see him again. So there’s grief in this apartment too, and longing, and love. It makes me realize that I’ve come to the end of what I can get out of my work in West Berlin. I long to get away and think all of this through: politics and its extremes and its limits. I don’t actually have space in my life literally or even contemplatively. On the one hand, my life here is full of ideas, but on the other hand it isn’t full of a depth of thoughtfulness. I know I’ve had an incredible experience here, but it’s time for me to move on. GUNATILLAKE: Do you ever feel like you don't have space? Perhaps you're in a phase of your life where that's true right now. If it helps, take a moment to feel your feet on the ground, open out your chest. Relief is available in every moment when we remember to turn to it. TIPPETT: It’s the summer of 1988, the year before the Wall comes down. No one can fathom that. And as desperate as I am to step away to make sense, I think I have to do something that sounds impressive. I give myself a four to five month stretch before I plan to head back to D.C. and more politics in the US. And I set off to write a novel. I decide to go to the most beautiful place I've ever been in the world, this little village on Majorca called Deia. It’s not overrun by tourists. It’s a really eccentric, hard to get to, artists colony with a lot of expatriates. I found it through a journalist friend and fell in love with it. It’s so lush, and fragrant. There’s so much color, so many flowers. You're crunching almonds under your feet as you walk around. The beach is a mile’s hike, no road goes there, and it’s amazing. In my memory the journalist’s house is kind of like a castle and I have this romantic vision of going there to settle into myself and be creative and reflect. “I'm going to write my novel here.” But then shortly before I’m to arrive, the very charismatic journalist dies suddenly, of a heart attack. His widow offers to find me another place to live, and she does – but my idyllic vision is shattered. I had the perfect plan and now it’s coming apart. It all feels doomed and I feel very alone and adrift. But she connects me with this man named Robert who has a room in his house for rent. He’s an English accountant who retired to Deia to tend his garden and restore rare books. I arrive and take a taxi to Robert’s house. It all feels very disorienting. I have the directions for where I’m supposed to go but it’s just a spot on the road. There’s no driveway or mailbox. The car stops and Robert is there to meet me. He appears to me this first time, I meet him as a grizzled man. He looks bedraggled and a little bit unsafe. He's missing a tooth or two and he has berry juice stains on his chin and his clothes. And there’s not exactly a path to his house; we kind of fight our way down a hill beneath the road through the brush. And I think, “Who is this person? Where I am I? What have I done?” We finally reach the house and it’s so simple, but really so smart and sturdy. Nothing fancy but elegant. Amazing really. There’s a nobility to it, and a peacefulness to it. It’s just falling off the side of a mountain. I don’t actually know how it stays attached to the Earth. The house is just an add-on to the garden, which is wild and magical. Robert sleeps in a hammock on the porch outside his bedroom every night. And I stay in a very simple room at the other side of the house. Everything is stone. Nothing fancy, but it’s perfect. I love it. I have a nice bed, and a little desk, and a tiny window. My view of the mountains is like a postcard and it is exquisite. The minute I walk in, the very first time, I think to myself, “I’m going to be really happy in this room.” And I am. GUNATILLAKE: Can you catch the fragrance of the flowers in the garden? The mountains and their majesty keeping everything in perspective. Take it in for a moment. Let go. TIPPETT: In Deia, I realize how exhausted I am and I how I hadn't been letting myself feel that. This stranger, Robert, in his mid 70s, nurses me back to health. I didn’t know I needed somebody to do that for me. He bakes bread from scratch every day and he makes everything out of his garden, these incredible salads where every ingredient is plucked straight from the ground. And there’s always a little dirt left in. He recommends books I’ve never read and gives me a cassette tape of Beethoven's late quartets. It becomes the soundtrack of my summer. I write all day, every day, on a schedule, but at lunchtime and in the evening I sit in the garden looking at the mountain and listening to this music. I get quiet for the first time in about 10 years. I start to pray, without calling it that at first. It takes me a while to figure out, but eventually I realize that sitting in this garden is actually the whole point of being here. This place isn’t on any of the maps that I'd been dealing with in Berlin. But it’s real, and it’s solid, and it matters. People are creating lives here that are as significant as those sitting around a conference table. And it’s a relief, because I think part of the reason I wasn’t able to imagine life beyond that career is that it felt like, if I could do that, which was so important, then how could I walk away from it? Sitting here, I remember that the world is complex and strange and that there's importance all over the place, different forms of importance. Coming out of that, getting quiet, I begin to open up to my inner life again. I ask the questions I need to ask about that world of high policy and why it’s wrong for me. It scares me to imagine the future differently, but I like myself so much more and I like myself in my body so much better sitting in this garden. It’s not about power in that sense. Being here leads me onto this whole other way forward. It leads me to what I do now. When I was in Berlin, it was all very exciting. Diplomatic dinner parties. Adventures half-way across the world. But also long, long days of work. It was very intense. My work absolutely bled into my life. There was no separation and absolutely no value placed on the rest of my life – or in ever getting away. What’s so striking to me now when I look back is how completely lacking in self awareness I was. How, in that life I was leading, it would have felt nonsensical to question it. Wearing myself into exhaustion was inevitable. I was so focused on accomplishment. Now I’m amidst the incredible beauty of the natural world in Deia, with this completely unexpected person in my life, and his generosity and kindness. The power of that. It’s an experience of hospitality. A human presence that has no interest in, ambition for, or goals of impressing. It creates this space for me that I hadn't been in, that maybe I'd never let myself be in. This is my turning point. I don't think I would have walked the direction I walked later if it weren’t for the time I spent in Robert’s garden. I wasn't expecting it and I wasn't looking for it. GUNATILLAKE: What would it take for you to do something unexpected? How do we find the courage to do the things we really need to do? It’s always worth being in silence, asking yourself that question and listening closely to the result. Maybe you can do that later today? TIPPETT: And there was something in that experience that flowed into everything I’ve done since. I wanted to make that possibility of reflection and restoration and life-giving questioning both more a part of my life but also more visible to others, more accessible. I think I had been asking this question all along: What do I want to do with my life? What kind of power do I care about exercising? What do I want to manifest in the world? Looking back, if I could change something, I wish I’d been kinder to myself all along. A year or so ago, I was telling someone this story of my 20s and they said: “How did you get to be so brave?” And I realized I’d never given myself any credit for being brave. I was always second guessing myself or planning what I had to do next. I didn’t give myself credit for how far I’d come and all the experiences I’d had. And I think it was brave. And I need to honor the bravery in myself so I can honor it in others. This bravery is not about being fearless, because I wasn’t fearless. But in walking with the fear – and through it, when everything I thought I knew turned out to be flimsy and questionable. And as I walked through it all, there was revelation, and there was confusion, and there was discovery. Now I see that I was on an adventure, all along. I think the thing that I did right was that I kept directing that adventure in generative ways. I wish I had been able to be a little bit more pleased and relax a little bit more into it and just enjoy it when it was fun, to take even more pleasure in the good days and the excitement of the questions and the excitement of discovery. I had stumbled on this strange mystery and reality that the only real power that sustains us we find inside ourselves – and in the care and company of others. GUNATILLAKE: What inspires me about Krista’s story is her ability to simply stop, which of course is not simple at all. Coming from the intensity of her time in Berlin to the quiet of Robert’s Mallorcan garden, she still held onto the idea of writing her novel. But that plan soon vanishes and Krista truly stops trying to achieve, lets go, and opens up. The same can happen in meditation. Even though it’s most associated with relaxation and letting go, many people still bring the mindset of achievement and goals to their practice. And while that can take you some way, there comes a point when you have to let go of all that. There even comes a time when you have to let go of the idea of a meditation technique. And that’s what we’re going to do today. No technique. Just meditation. No technique. Just mindful awareness. That’s what this meditation is all about. Pure, simple meditation practice. And just taking a short while to settle yourself in for it. Closing the eyes if it’s safe to do so. Relaxing the eyes if you’d rather have them open. Letting your back be upright. Your head sitting elegantly upon your neck. Letting the belly be relaxed. The belly soft and fluid. Committing yourself to this short period of meditation. Enjoying the luxury of time dedicated to mindfulness. And in this meditation we’ll drop technique, drop the need to do anything in particular, and just be here. Be where you are. Aware, alert, and alive. Nothing to do but be here and to be aware. Just here. Knowing what is happening while it is happening. Dropping all ideas of what meditation should be like, and just being present. And knowing what that’s like. Not making anything more important than anything else. Just here. And letting mindfulness just do its job. Letting everything be known. If you feel your mind has wandered away, remember that because we’re not looking at anything in particular, there’s nothing for it to wander away from. Just wakefulness. And what is known by that wakefulness. If you feel your mind has wandered away again, and then you remember you’re meditating, noticing that in that very moment there is mindfulness. Mindfulness re-establishing itself. Without you having to do anything. All you have to do is be here. Doing nothing. Alert and aware. Everything known. Nothing left out. Knowing what is happening as it happens, without judgement. And if judgement arises, allowing that, knowing that. However your body is. Simple. Relaxed. Open. Aware. Just here. Not doing anything. Just here. Not chasing after experience. Just here. Leaving everything alone. And if thoughts arise, no need to go out to them and get caught up. No need to give them any more fuel. Just resting. And letting everything happen. Just being aware, just watching, whatever there is to be watched. Enjoying the stillness of just being here. Enjoying whatever silence there might be. And when there’s noise, knowing that too and letting it be here. Celebrating the fact that you have awareness at all. And letting it be free. Just here. Upright. Relaxed. And alert. Dropping all techniques. Dropping all notions of what meditation should or shouldn’t be like. And just resting in awareness. Not doing anything. Enjoying non-doing. Simple. Here. And now. And if mindfulness slips away, noticing that the very moment you notice that, mindfulness is right there. Arising by itself. A natural quality of your mind. Just here. Allowing all experience. Nothing special. Everything special. Everything special in Robert’s garden.
KRISTA'S MEDITATIVE STORY
PRESENCE
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"What inspires me about Krista’s story is her ability to simply stop, which of course is not simple at all. When Krista's plan vanishes, she truly stops trying to achieve, lets go, and opens up. The same can happen in meditation. Even though it’s most associated with relaxation and letting go, many people still bring the mindset of achievement and goals to their practice. And while that can take you some way, there comes a point when you have to let go of all that. There even comes a time when you have to let go of the idea of a meditation technique."
About Krista Tippett
From the closing meditation
Krista Tippett
Krista Tippett, the host of "On Being," talks about the time she took a break from the intensity of life and just stopped to check in with herself – with deeply unexpected results.
CLARITY
Listen
Krista Tippett’s early years aren't what you’d expect knowing who she is today. As a journalist and political aide in divided Berlin in the '80s, Krista Tippett led a life of importance, where she was surrounded by power, where every decision mattered. But when a window opened to step away from that heady life, she found a new space – and time to ask herself what really, truly mattered. She shares her story to remind us how we can find meaning in unexpected places.
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
KRISTA'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Krista Tippett
I let go of my plan — and found myself
Life and love and the moment
Episode Transcript
Episode Transcript
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
PRESENCE
JOHN'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Arianna Huffington
The perfect photograph I never took
About John Moore
Episode Transcript
John Moore is a senior staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images. He has photographed in 65 countries on six continents and was posted internationally for 17 years, first to Nicaragua, then India, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and Pakistan. Since returning to the US in 2008, he has focused on immigration and border issues. He won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, among many other awards, and is the author of "Undocumented: Immigration and the Militarization of the United States-Mexico Border."
JOHN MOORE
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JOHN MOORE
As a Special Correspondent for Getty Images, John Moore’s work has taken him around the world, often to places of great conflict and human drama. Here, he shares a story about the pursuit of a singular photograph – in the hills of the Congo Rainforest – that literally brought him to his knees. We approach life full of expectations... can we make room for the magic that occurs when things don’t go as planned?
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
PRESENCE
Arianna Huffington
As a Special Correspondent for Getty Images, John Moore’s work has taken him around the world, often to places of great conflict and human drama. Here, he shares a story about the pursuit of a singular photograph – in the hills of the Congo Rainforest – that literally brought him to his knees. We approach life full of expectations... can we make room for the magic that occurs when things don’t go as planned?
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– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
John Moore is a senior staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images. He has photographed in 65 countries on six continents and was posted internationally for 17 years, first to Nicaragua, then India, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and Pakistan. Since returning to the US in 2008, he has focused on immigration and border issues. He won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, among many other awards, and is the author of "Undocumented: Immigration and the Militarization of the United States-Mexico Border."
OPENNESS
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OPENNESS
John Moore
While filming one day in the Congo rainforest, legendary photojournalist John Moore pursued the vision of a perfect photograph – a vision that literally brought him to his knees. He shares the magic that can occur when you let go of the desire to control the outcome.
From the closing meditation
"In our heads, we have one idea of how life’s going to turn out, and in reality it turns out completely differently. And while not all of us might be faced with the majestic sight of a silverback in full chest-beating and heart-pumping flow, when we – like John – raise up our eyes, we too can experience some remarkable things. Unplanned. Unmediated."
JOHN MOORE: I imagine the splendid scene up in those mountains. Surrounded by lush forest, the gorillas amble out into a clearing and gaze onto the vista. The surrounding hills come in and out of view as a gentle breeze pushes the mist through the trees and dense underbrush. In my mind, the photograph is spectacular. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: As a Special Correspondent for Getty Images, John Moore’s work has taken him all around the world, often to places of great conflict and human drama. Today, we’ll hear John share a story about the pursuit of a photograph that literally brought him to his knees. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Some of the prompts may feel really right for you. Others, less so. That’s okay. And now onto the story. John’s experience has an intensity to it, and that may make it a less obvious choice for Meditative Story, but mindfulness doesn’t just mean relaxation. It’s also about vibrancy and aliveness. And now, let go of the need to do anything in particular. Ready to hear John’s story. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MOORE: In 1994, I travel to eastern Congo to photograph hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees living in sprawling camps. I base myself in the Congolese town of Goma, which straddles the border with Rwanda. My hotel is modest. I stay in a simple one-floor structure. Each room with a mosquito net, hanging above single beds. The rooms are arranged around a common area with worn sofas. The place has been taken over by international journalists, all there to cover the story. I process my film in a bathroom I fashion into a darkroom by covering the window. I mix my chemicals in a contraption known as the “road warrior.” It keeps the developer at an even 100 degrees. Every day, I return covered in a stench from the squalid camps and go into that darkroom. I emerge 20 minutes later smelling of film-developing chemicals, a modest improvement. One day, I photographed a barefoot family, their gray clothes in tatters, as they walked over the black jagged lava, which forms the desolate ground there. They were scouring the area for cooking wood and further reducing wildlife terrain. Beyond them in the distance, smoke rose from the volcanic crater of Mount Nyiragongo, in Virunga National Park. That night, as I finish work I head to the hotel roof. I watch the volcano’s orange glow. It brightens and dims from the bubbling lava below. The park is also the largest habitat for endangered mountain gorillas; it gets me thinking. I know something of these creatures. Like many people, I’ve seen the film “Gorillas in the Mist”. As I gaze at the pulsing orange glow, I think of how beautiful it would be to photograph the gorillas in their natural habitat after my month covering the ravages of war. With the movie in mind, I imagine the splendid scene up in those mountains. Surrounded by lush forest, the gorillas amble out into a clearing and gaze onto the vista. The surrounding hills come in and out of view as a gentle breeze pushes the mist through the trees and dense underbrush. In my mind, the photograph is spectacular. I know as a photojournalist that the strongest pictures are often a combination of preparedness and luck. You can have all of one, but without a little of the other, the image never finds its way into your camera. The next day, I cross the border from Congo into Rwanda. I meet a veteran guide, Jean Bosco, who agrees to take me. It’s his first trip back into the jungle since the military conflict began months before. Together, we climb into a beat-up Land Cruiser, its back seats just a pair of benches that run along the insides of the vehicle. We drive into the foothills, higher and higher, surrounded by beautiful terraced hillsides. After a few hours, we reach the end of the road and the start of a long footpath. The trailhead forms a small clearing where the grass is tall. This time, as we start walking, we go almost immediately into a vertical climb. Dark clouds move in, and I struggle to keep from falling. Rain and wind lash my poncho as I try to keep my gear dry. My cameras, light at the outset, become heavier with every step. GUNATILLAKE: Does it feel like you're carrying a lot of baggage right now? How are your shoulders? Take a moment to roll them, rolling your shoulders back to free up some tension. Perhaps that feels a little lighter. MOORE: After at least three hours of this steep, slippery climb, we meet another local guide, who has just returned from the gorilla habitat. He warns us, sharply: These gorillas are different from the ones on the Congo side. These gorillas have been through war. These gorillas have learned that humans are dangerous. Undeterred, I ask the local guide to take me as close as possible to any gorilla families still in the area. We set out along a wet mountain path. I picture the image I want. As if on cue, the sky briefly clears and the perfect background appears – row upon row of mountains stretched to the horizon, lightly covered in mist. I look up to an adjacent hill and there they are – a family of mountain gorillas striding together along the ridge. It’s a group of four, including two adolescents, a larger female, and a giant silverback male, his high-pitched forehead bobbing along with his casual gait. I ask my guide to take me up so that I can photograph them with my wide lens up close, framed by that incredible view. He arches an eyebrow and shakes his head. “They’re wild again,” he says “and unpredictable.” I look back to the hill and they’re still there. It’s the gorilla photo I imagined while back in Congo. I hand him my camera bag and ask him to wait for me. I start climbing the slope. It doesn’t seem steep at first, but soon I’m crawling up, grasping at vines and roots, trying to keep my camera from slinging into the muck. As the grade becomes steeper, I begin to slip down a step, and then claw my way back, just a bit higher than before. Time slows as the foliage comes loose in my hands. It seems as though I’m crawling in place. I dig the toes of my boots into the hillside and I begin to make headway. By the time I reach the ridge, I’m soaked with sweat, caked in mud. As I stand, I quickly see the situation has changed. The female and children of the family are no longer visible. Standing alone, just 30 yards away, the silverback male remains, waiting for me. He stares at me and I realize that I may have miscalculated. In my disheveled terror, I lower myself into a crouch, as close to the ground as possible. I stare down and begin to clear my throat, making low grunting sounds. This sounds submissive to the gorillas. I have no idea how long I hold that position cowering atop that mountain, staring at the ground before me, but it seems like a long time. In my peripheral vision, I see movement. Suddenly, one and then two enormous hairy feet step into my lowered field of view. I increase my grunting exponentially as the feet seem to fill my vision. And then I hear a faint, rhythmic beating. At first I think it’s the sound of my own heart, bursting free. But then the sound grows louder. It seems more like a thumping. I risk it all and raise my eyes. The gorilla’s hairy legs nearly fill my view, almost touching my face. As I tilt my head up, I behold an unforgettable scene: The silverback mountain gorilla is standing over me, pounding his chest, his mouth wide open, teeth bared, head thrown backward, wide eyes staring skyward. King Kong. The iconic alpha male. I quickly lower my head before making eye contact with him. I again focus upon the hairy feet before me. Then, in an instant, he turns on his heels and his feet leave my field of view. I venture a glance as he saunters away to rejoin his family. With a second chance at life, I move on that slope with such speed that I begin to tumble down, cartwheeling to the bottom, covered in mud. I stagger towards the tree line and there’s my guide, who’s watched the entire spectacle from a safe distance. As I see his smiling face, amused and astounded in equal measure, it occurs to me – I came a very long way with a plan to see gorillas in the mist. That day I left the mountain without a single photograph. Preconceived notions, either for a photograph or what I imagine as an ideal experience, yes, can motivate me to book that flight, drive that long road, or climb that steep hill. But so often these notions are just a creation of my imagination – or maybe a scene I once saw in a movie. Twenty years after my visit, the mountain gorilla population has doubled, due to a savvy combination of conservation and sustainable tourism. And I still don’t have that photograph. The memory is worth so much more. GUNATILLAKE: So, on the top of that ridge, even though the light conditions were ideal, the backdrop perfect, and John’s plans meticulous, it really made no difference to the silverback, did it? He was going to express his animal wildness, and all John could do was bear witness. He spent a lot of effort to get his shot and even though he ended up leaving without it, it was the experience and the memory of that experience that stays with him to this day. More often than not, things are like that aren’t they? In our heads, we have one idea of how life’s going to turn out and in reality it turns out completely differently. And while not all of us might be faced with the majestic sight of a silverback in full chest-beating and heart-pumping flow, when we, like John, raise up our eyes, we too can experience some remarkable things. Unplanned, unmediated. Meditation is the same. When starting out, we buy into the romance and think that just by sitting down and closing our eyes, somehow our minds are magically going to drop into some kind of beautiful state, full of rainbows and majestic lakes, effortlessly still, blissful even. But it’s not really like that. Certainly not at first. What turns up is the silverback, the wild, raw, power of the mind. Thoughts, ideas, feelings, energy – untamed. They don’t drop away just because we’re doing this thing we’re calling meditation. Our plans make no difference to the silverback energy of the mind. It can be overwhelming, powerful. And our job is to be there while it beats its chest. Fully there, to bear witness. So let’s do that. But before we slide into meditation, take a moment. What do you think the little meditation we do together is going to be like? What are your expectations? What do you think is going to show up? Ok, now, if it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes you can do that. And no worries if not. Let your body be in whatever position it is. Inviting comfort, inviting relaxation. And, if you like, you can imagine, you can visualise doing what John did. Slowly crawling up the mountainside, holding onto roots and stumps, scrambling up the slope in the damp, to see what is there to be experienced. What do you find here? Looking inside, looking at your mind, your heart, what animal energy are you most aware of? Can you witness it, bow down to it, be with it, just as John did? For me, as I close my eyes and sense into what’s happening inside me, there’s a sense of vibration, a sense of power even. I thought I’d be feeling calmer but what’s actually happening is this. Not quite as loud as a silverback beating its chest, but powerful all the same. A sense of restlessness, energy which needs an outlet. What is it for you? What energy can you bow down to, bear witness to? Maybe it’s the chaotic chatter of the thinking mind, like the tumbling gorilla toddlers from before? Or maybe it’s the quiet but watchful mind of those toddlers’ mother. If you like this metaphor of your mind as some kind of animal energy, then do use it. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s ok too. What matters is that you look at and experience what’s happening inside you directly, without filters, just as it’s presenting itself to you in this moment. So take a look. What energy is here? However we want our minds to be, however we want our meditation to be, more often than not life has other plans. So even though like John we can have the movie version of what will happen in our minds – and go to great lengths to realise that fantasy – even if those plans never materialise, what does can be truly magical. The loud magic of a silverback gorilla alpha-male-ing you down or the quieter, simpler magic of being present with whatever is here. But to know that magic, we have to surrender. We have to let go of what we want the moment to be like, what we want our mind to be like, and be with how it actually is. To surrender and raise our eyes.
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From the closing meditation
About John Moore
JOHN MOORE: I imagine the splendid scene up in those mountains. Surrounded by lush forest, the gorillas amble out into a clearing and gaze onto the vista. The surrounding hills come in and out of view as a gentle breeze pushes the mist through the trees and dense underbrush. In my mind, the photograph is spectacular. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: As a Special Correspondent for Getty Images, John Moore’s work has taken him all around the world, often to places of great conflict and human drama. Today, we’ll hear John share a story about the pursuit of a photograph that literally brought him to his knees. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you recharge at any moment of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide for Meditative Story. Some of the prompts may feel really right for you. Others, less so. That’s okay. And now onto the story. John’s experience has an intensity to it, and that may make it a less obvious choice for Meditative Story, but mindfulness doesn’t just mean relaxation. It’s also about vibrancy and aliveness. And now, let go of the need to do anything in particular. Ready to hear John’s story. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MOORE: In 1994, I travel to eastern Congo to photograph hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees living in sprawling camps. I base myself in the Congolese town of Goma, which straddles the border with Rwanda. My hotel is modest. I stay in a simple one-floor structure. Each room with a mosquito net, hanging above single beds. The rooms are arranged around a common area with worn sofas. The place has been taken over by international journalists, all there to cover the story. I process my film in a bathroom I fashion into a darkroom by covering the window. I mix my chemicals in a contraption known as the “road warrior.” It keeps the developer at an even 100 degrees. Every day, I return covered in a stench from the squalid camps and go into that darkroom. I emerge 20 minutes later smelling of film-developing chemicals, a modest improvement. One day, I photographed a barefoot family, their gray clothes in tatters, as they walked over the black jagged lava, which forms the desolate ground there. They were scouring the area for cooking wood and further reducing wildlife terrain. Beyond them in the distance, smoke rose from the volcanic crater of Mount Nyiragongo, in Virunga National Park. That night, as I finish work I head to the hotel roof. I watch the volcano’s orange glow. It brightens and dims from the bubbling lava below. The park is also the largest habitat for endangered mountain gorillas; it gets me thinking. I know something of these creatures. Like many people, I’ve seen the film “Gorillas in the Mist”. As I gaze at the pulsing orange glow, I think of how beautiful it would be to photograph the gorillas in their natural habitat after my month covering the ravages of war. With the movie in mind, I imagine the splendid scene up in those mountains. Surrounded by lush forest, the gorillas amble out into a clearing and gaze onto the vista. The surrounding hills come in and out of view as a gentle breeze pushes the mist through the trees and dense underbrush. In my mind, the photograph is spectacular. I know as a photojournalist that the strongest pictures are often a combination of preparedness and luck. You can have all of one, but without a little of the other, the image never finds its way into your camera. The next day, I cross the border from Congo into Rwanda. I meet a veteran guide, Jean Bosco, who agrees to take me. It’s his first trip back into the jungle since the military conflict began months before. Together, we climb into a beat-up Land Cruiser, its back seats just a pair of benches that run along the insides of the vehicle. We drive into the foothills, higher and higher, surrounded by beautiful terraced hillsides. After a few hours, we reach the end of the road and the start of a long footpath. The trailhead forms a small clearing where the grass is tall. This time, as we start walking, we go almost immediately into a vertical climb. Dark clouds move in, and I struggle to keep from falling. Rain and wind lash my poncho as I try to keep my gear dry. My cameras, light at the outset, become heavier with every step. GUNATILLAKE: Does it feel like you're carrying a lot of baggage right now? How are your shoulders? Take a moment to roll them, rolling your shoulders back to free up some tension. Perhaps that feels a little lighter. MOORE: After at least three hours of this steep, slippery climb, we meet another local guide, who has just returned from the gorilla habitat. He warns us, sharply: These gorillas are different from the ones on the Congo side. These gorillas have been through war. These gorillas have learned that humans are dangerous. Undeterred, I ask the local guide to take me as close as possible to any gorilla families still in the area. We set out along a wet mountain path. I picture the image I want. As if on cue, the sky briefly clears and the perfect background appears – row upon row of mountains stretched to the horizon, lightly covered in mist. I look up to an adjacent hill and there they are – a family of mountain gorillas striding together along the ridge. It’s a group of four, including two adolescents, a larger female, and a giant silverback male, his high-pitched forehead bobbing along with his casual gait. I ask my guide to take me up so that I can photograph them with my wide lens up close, framed by that incredible view. He arches an eyebrow and shakes his head. “They’re wild again,” he says “and unpredictable.” I look back to the hill and they’re still there. It’s the gorilla photo I imagined while back in Congo. I hand him my camera bag and ask him to wait for me. I start climbing the slope. It doesn’t seem steep at first, but soon I’m crawling up, grasping at vines and roots, trying to keep my camera from slinging into the muck. As the grade becomes steeper, I begin to slip down a step, and then claw my way back, just a bit higher than before. Time slows as the foliage comes loose in my hands. It seems as though I’m crawling in place. I dig the toes of my boots into the hillside and I begin to make headway. By the time I reach the ridge, I’m soaked with sweat, caked in mud. As I stand, I quickly see the situation has changed. The female and children of the family are no longer visible. Standing alone, just 30 yards away, the silverback male remains, waiting for me. He stares at me and I realize that I may have miscalculated. In my disheveled terror, I lower myself into a crouch, as close to the ground as possible. I stare down and begin to clear my throat, making low grunting sounds. This sounds submissive to the gorillas. I have no idea how long I hold that position cowering atop that mountain, staring at the ground before me, but it seems like a long time. In my peripheral vision, I see movement. Suddenly, one and then two enormous hairy feet step into my lowered field of view. I increase my grunting exponentially as the feet seem to fill my vision. And then I hear a faint, rhythmic beating. At first I think it’s the sound of my own heart, bursting free. But then the sound grows louder. It seems more like a thumping. I risk it all and raise my eyes. The gorilla’s hairy legs nearly fill my view, almost touching my face. As I tilt my head up, I behold an unforgettable scene: The silverback mountain gorilla is standing over me, pounding his chest, his mouth wide open, teeth bared, head thrown backward, wide eyes staring skyward. King Kong. The iconic alpha male. I quickly lower my head before making eye contact with him. I again focus upon the hairy feet before me. Then, in an instant, he turns on his heels and his feet leave my field of view. I venture a glance as he saunters away to rejoin his family. With a second chance at life, I move on that slope with such speed that I begin to tumble down, cartwheeling to the bottom, covered in mud. I stagger towards the tree line and there’s my guide, who’s watched the entire spectacle from a safe distance. As I see his smiling face, amused and astounded in equal measure, it occurs to me – I came a very long way with a plan to see gorillas in the mist. That day I left the mountain without a single photograph. Preconceived notions, either for a photograph or what I imagine as an ideal experience, yes, can motivate me to book that flight, drive that long road, or climb that steep hill. But so often these notions are just a creation of my imagination – or maybe a scene I once saw in a movie. Twenty years after my visit, the mountain gorilla population has doubled, due to a savvy combination of conservation and sustainable tourism. And I still don’t have that photograph. The memory is worth so much more. GUNATILLAKE: So, on the top of that ridge, even though the light conditions were ideal, the backdrop perfect, and John’s plans meticulous, it really made no difference to the silverback, did it? He was going to express his animal wildness, and all John could do was bear witness. He spent a lot of effort to get his shot and even though he ended up leaving without it, it was the experience and the memory of that experience that stays with him to this day. More often than not, things are like that aren’t they? In our heads, we have one idea of how life’s going to turn out and in reality it turns out completely differently. And while not all of us might be faced with the majestic sight of a silverback in full chest-beating and heart-pumping flow, when we, like John, raise up our eyes, we too can experience some remarkable things. Unplanned, unmediated. Meditation is the same. When starting out, we buy into the romance and think that just by sitting down and closing our eyes, somehow our minds are magically going to drop into some kind of beautiful state, full of rainbows and majestic lakes, effortlessly still, blissful even. But it’s not really like that. Certainly not at first. What turns up is the silverback, the wild, raw, power of the mind. Thoughts, ideas, feelings, energy – untamed. They don’t drop away just because we’re doing this thing we’re calling meditation. Our plans make no difference to the silverback energy of the mind. It can be overwhelming, powerful. And our job is to be there while it beats its chest. Fully there, to bear witness. So let’s do that. But before we slide into meditation, take a moment. What do you think the little meditation we do together is going to be like? What are your expectations? What do you think is going to show up? Ok, now, if it’s safe and comfortable to close your eyes you can do that. And no worries if not. Let your body be in whatever position it is. Inviting comfort, inviting relaxation. And, if you like, you can imagine, you can visualise doing what John did. Slowly crawling up the mountainside, holding onto roots and stumps, scrambling up the slope in the damp, to see what is there to be experienced. What do you find here? Looking inside, looking at your mind, your heart, what animal energy are you most aware of? Can you witness it, bow down to it, be with it, just as John did? For me, as I close my eyes and sense into what’s happening inside me, there’s a sense of vibration, a sense of power even. I thought I’d be feeling calmer but what’s actually happening is this. Not quite as loud as a silverback beating its chest, but powerful all the same. A sense of restlessness, energy which needs an outlet. What is it for you? What energy can you bow down to, bear witness to? Maybe it’s the chaotic chatter of the thinking mind, like the tumbling gorilla toddlers from before? Or maybe it’s the quiet but watchful mind of those toddlers’ mother. If you like this metaphor of your mind as some kind of animal energy, then do use it. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s ok too. What matters is that you look at and experience what’s happening inside you directly, without filters, just as it’s presenting itself to you in this moment. So take a look. What energy is here? However we want our minds to be, however we want our meditation to be, more often than not life has other plans. So even though like John we can have the movie version of what will happen in our minds – and go to great lengths to realise that fantasy – even if those plans never materialise, what does can be truly magical. The loud magic of a silverback gorilla alpha-male-ing you down or the quieter, simpler magic of being present with whatever is here. But to know that magic, we have to surrender. We have to let go of what we want the moment to be like, what we want our mind to be like, and be with how it actually is. To surrender and raise our eyes.
John Moore
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While filming one day in the Congo rainforest, legendary photojournalist John Moore pursued the vision of a perfect photograph – a vision that literally brought him to his knees. He shares the magic that can occur when you let go of the desire to control the outcome.
Listen
Life and love and the moment
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
JOHN'S MEDITATIVE STORY
The perfect photograph I never took
Life and love and the moment
Danny Meyer is a world-renowned restaurateur but his love of food was born out of a simple plate of pasta during a family trip as young boy. It was the joy in that first discovery that ignited his passion and led to everything that would come later. And it's in practicing discovery, we feed our ability to create and soulfulness in our lives.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Sign up for news about Meditative Story from Thrive and WaitWhat
Danny Meyer is a world-renowned restaurateur but his love of food was born out of a simple plate of pasta during a family trip as young boy. It was the joy in that first discovery that ignited his passion and led to everything that would come later. And it's in practicing discovery, we feed our ability to create and soulfulness in our lives.
ATTENTION
About Danny Meyer
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CREATIVITY
DANNY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
DANNY MEYER
DANNY'S MEDITATIVE STORY
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, Shake Shack, The Modern, and more. Meyer and USHG have won 28 James Beard Foundation Awards. Meyer is also the author of multiple books, including the IACP Julia Child Award winner The Union Square Cafe Cookbook and the New York Times best seller Setting the Table.
Episode Transcript
Episode Transcript
DANNY MEYER
CREATIVITY
Danny Meyer
Restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him: a family trip to Europe and a simple plate of pasta. That memorable meal sparked a lifetime practice of discovery that continues to feed his creativity and his soul.
Restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him: a family trip to Europe and a simple plate of pasta. That memorable meal sparked a lifetime practice of discovery that continues to feed his creativity and his soul.
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"Every moment is a chance to note what’s happening inside. Every moment is another stop on your tour of discovery."
Listen
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
From the closing meditation
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How to find—and feed —your passion
From the closing meditation
DANNY MEYER: These early trips are filled with delight which continues over the course of my travels. The delight is always connected to discovery. And often, in my case, the discovery is connected to things I get to taste. It doesn't have to be fancy food. It can be utterly simple and cheap. Every time I taste something delicious what fascinates me is who came up with the idea, what can I learn about it? What does it say about the people who made it? ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I love making food and I think I’m pretty good at it. And there’s so much to the culture of food that makes me feel alive – how it grows, how it brings people together, food’s ability to express our identity, community, creativity, our values. In today’s episode, world famous restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him, a family trip to Europe which opened his young eyes to what the experience of eating food together could be like. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance for a deeper connection to the story and what’s happening in your own experience as you listen. And before I hand over to Danny, let’s try something. Can you remember the last truly wonderful meal you had? It might have been recently or a while back. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was so memorable that just by saying the words “wonderful meal” it comes to mind. Now bring to mind the specific aspects of what made it so lovely. Perhaps it was the company. Perhaps it was the dishes themselves. Or maybe it was the place where they were served. Picture it. That special meal back in your mind. Alive again. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MEYER: Just before my twelfth birthday, my dad – who was in the travel business back in St. Louis – found himself negotiating to lease two different hotels in Rome. The good news for me and my family was that his negotiations were taking place not only during our two-week spring vacation but also during my twelfth birthday. That was the first time I ever went to Rome and I remember on the actual day of my birthday having a twelve course pasta tasting dinner. It was a revelation to me. A complete revelation. Just the discovery of all these flavors and foods and people and places that I'd never experienced growing up. The next day, my dad took us all to a famous old restaurant in Trastevere called Da Meo Patacca. Immediately, it hits me: the garlicky wafts of tomato sauce. The warm laughter around the tiny tables. All of my senses are suddenly awake. I’ve never seen a restaurant like this, and I’ve never had food like this. There was the pasta of course… And the platters overflowing with artichokes! I had had artichokes back home in St. Louis – you know, the big, round ones, which my mom would sometimes boil to death, the leaves then dipped into melted butter. But I’ve never seen these long artichokes, fried and smashed into carciofi alla guida. And the roast baby lamb, abbacchio, with its odd cuts and tiny bones that are so succulent. GUNATILLAKE: What a place and what a meal. Can you imagine sitting there at young Danny's table? What would most capture your attention: the smells, the tastes, the spectacle? MEYER: It’s an entirely different world from what I know growing up in St. Louis. Back home, I’m used to the flavors of the American Midwest. The mellow experience of growing up there as a kid in the ‘60s, a somewhat repetitive culinary experience. Think: curb-side burgers, frozen custard, St. Louis-style pizza topped with Provel, which is basically a lot of different cheeses combined, to the point where it doesn’t really taste like cheese at all. But in Rome, everything tastes exactly as you’d hope it would. And the food in Rome was the great discovery of my life. I would go on to visit Europe every few years as a kid – and now as often as possible as an adult. These early trips are filled with delight which continues over the course of my travels. The delight is always connected to discovery. I’ve come to believe this sense of discovery can be as nourishing as food itself. But discovery means different things to different people. For some people, discovery is about seeing something unexpected; for others, it’s about doing something they didn’t know they were capable of. In my case, the discovery is connected to things I get to taste. My passion for food is the portal that connects me most deeply to the world. Every time I taste something delicious, what fascinates me is: Who came up with the idea, what can I learn about it? What does it say about the people who made it? I’ll never forget the first time I finally figured out that almost every Roman trattoria has the exact same pastas on the menu and every one of them is related. There’s the cacio e pepe, which is simply spaghetti with pecorino cheese, olive oil, and lots of black pepper. Then by simply adding guanciale, the bacon that comes from the cheek of the pig, it becomes spaghetti alla gricia. Or, by adding eggs, that same exact recipe becomes spaghetti alla carbonara. And if you omit the eggs and add tomato sauce instead, you get spaghetti alla amatriciana. Four different pastas, all related. What impresses me isn’t always the complexity of the idea; sometimes it’s the simplicity. Something that impacted me from a young age about Italy was the emphasis on ingredients. Great Italian cooks really cherish, respect their ingredients. A little olive oil and salt doesn’t provide much disguise if the tomato itself isn’t perfectly sun-ripened, or if the basil isn’t fragrant. I remember a spaghetti alla carbonara, melanzane alla parmigiana, vongole veraci – the tiny clams that would open just as they were kissed by the garlic, olive oil, and spaghetti with which they were meant to marry. All so simple and unadorned. One of the things I discovered about myself in Rome, that I prize wherever I find it, is an Italian word called sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is what happens when the food – or the painting or the athletic endeavour or the architecture – comes across as having been effortless, and yet the quality belies that. In other words, you can dig into a bowl of pasta that is so amazing and makes you so happy, and you know how much work must have gone into it – and yet, you look at that bowl of pasta and it appears to be effortless. That’s sprezzatura. Today, that very ethos informs everything I do. How can this feel more timeless? How can the dining room be a little less designed, the dessert a little less composed? It’s a mindset of being understated, pared back. Letting the fundamentals shine. It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing that more is better. Whenever I find myself thinking this way, I remind myself of the simple bowls of pasta I discovered in Rome. And the little things that make all the difference. GUNATILLAKE: What little things can you notice right now around you? Even if they seem familiar, can you see, hear, or feel them with real freshness? There can be so much joy to being a tourist wherever you are. MEYER: In Rome, I also discovered the way the restaurant itself can transform a meal: the earthy terracotta floors, the checkered tablecloths, the domed brick ceiling, and a warm glow of table lanterns. The tables are closer together than I’ve ever seen in St. Louis. In the trattorias of Rome, no matter where you sit, you feel the buzzing energy of everyone around you. It’s that energy – the locals, the music of the motorcycles everywhere – all around. I find an irresistibly chaotic cacophony, and it almost always leads to a really good meal. There’s something about the different kinds of energy that heighten my senses. I feel connected to the people around me – and present. Still today, there’s nowhere I feel more at home – or more alive – than at a trattoria. I think I learned from these trattorias to pay attention to the tiny details. I’ll never forget how odd it was when I first came to New York and I realized that, unlike St. Louis where I’d grown up, you don’t get a little lemon zest with your espresso. And why was it in New York, unlike Rome, the cappuccino was known for how tall the foam was, almost as if someone was trying to create the Matterhorn mountain on top of the cup. And now today, something that you would also never seen in Rome, New York places always try to design the foam. So many people go in search of grand revelations. But I find discoveries everywhere I look. Even in little things, like the foam on my coffee. Italy is still my favorite place to go in search of these tiny discoveries. There's just something about Rome that to this day, I feel like I must have lived there in a previous life. I go to the market and smell every single thing that can be smelled. I stop for three or four coffees even when I don’t need coffee – because how can I not? I notice the milk, the cups, the tiny chocolate or treat served on the side. And every time I pass one of those iconic drinking fountains, the ones you see all over Rome, I stop and drink from it. Like the city itself, like travel itself, the fountains of Rome rejuvenate me to continue my tour of discovery. GUNATILLAKE: I have to be honest, I had to look up sprezzatura in the dictionary. It was a new word and idea to me, but I love it. In one place I saw it translated as ‘studied carelessness’, when something has the appearance of having just been thrown together but actually has been the result of meticulous skilled work. So Italian. All of which made me wonder what would be the most sprezzatura of meditation techniques? And the one that came to mind right away is one called noting. So that’s what we’re going to try a little bit of now. So let’s get ready. If you’re sitting, sitting comfortably. If you’re standing, standing comfortably. However your body is, seeing if you can let it express the qualities of both alertness and relaxation. Uprightness in the spine supporting alertness. Softness in the belly supporting relaxation and openness. Enjoying resting your awareness in the body. Letting your awareness fill the whole of your body. From the touch of your feet on the ground to the top of your head. Being present. Present in the body. Simple. Whole. And Here. And now that we have established ourselves in awareness of the body we’re going to play a little game. And the rules are quite simple. At any one time, there will be a particular aspect of your inner experience which is most prominent, which most stands out, where your attention is drawn to. Be interested in what that is, and the game is to simply say its name out loud. And if you’re not sure what’s most prominent, then simply say “not sure”, and by definition you’re naming what is happening. That might not be clear, so let me do an example: Tension. Touch. Tingling. Planning. Thinking. Not sure. Calm. That’s all it is. What we’re doing is being aware of what’s most prominent inside ourselves and saying its name out loud. Nothing more to it. It’s actually quite straightforward. So do give that a go yourself. And if it doesn’t feel right to say the words out loud, just say them internally to yourself. I’ll start again and when I stop, it’s over to you: Touch. Tingling. Not sure. Grateful. Calm. Ok now you, just naming what is happening while it’s happening. That might have felt odd or it might have felt great. Either way, this is one of my favorite mindfulness techniques around, because if mindfulness is knowing what’s happening inside yourself while it’s happening, then doing this noting technique is as pure a form of mindfulness as we can get. Ok. Letting your awareness fill the whole body again. Noticing the energy that’s here, the momentum from having done the exercise. Building back our reserves of stability and balance. And let’s give it another go. Again I’ll start off and then it’s over to you. Just naming what’s happening in your inner experience, whatever’s most prominent. If that’s a physical sensation, then naming that physical sensation. If it’s a mental process, naming that mental process. There are only a few simple rules to keep in mind. Keep the rhythm going nicely so that your mindfulness is good and constant. If you’re thinking about dinner, the thing you should note is thinking rather than dinner since what is happening is the thinking, not the dinner. And if you’re not sure what’s happening then just note not sure. And you’ll be right. Oh and have fun. Again, I’ll start you off: Tingling. Not sure. Relaxation. Itching. Amusement. Thinking. Now over to you. Nicely done. I hope that was fun. And I also hope that you can see why I think it’s a technique of real sprezzatura. Because while deceptively simple on the outside, it belies the fact that what you need to do to make it happen is a really strong foundation in mindfulness and an alive and alert mind. You might have really connected with this technique or it might not have worked for you this first time around, that’s totally normal. If you do like it, remember it’s entirely portable. Every moment is a chance to note what’s happening inside. Every moment is another stop on your tour of discovery.
Danny Meyer
DANNY MEYER: These early trips are filled with delight which continues over the course of my travels. The delight is always connected to discovery. And often, in my case, the discovery is connected to things I get to taste. It doesn't have to be fancy food. It can be utterly simple and cheap. Every time I taste something delicious what fascinates me is who came up with the idea, what can I learn about it? What does it say about the people who made it? ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I love making food and I think I’m pretty good at it. And there’s so much to the culture of food that makes me feel alive – how it grows, how it brings people together, food’s ability to express our identity, community, creativity, our values. In today’s episode, world famous restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him, a family trip to Europe which opened his young eyes to what the experience of eating food together could be like. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance for a deeper connection to the story and what’s happening in your own experience as you listen. And before I hand over to Danny, let’s try something. Can you remember the last truly wonderful meal you had? It might have been recently or a while back. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was so memorable that just by saying the words “wonderful meal” it comes to mind. Now bring to mind the specific aspects of what made it so lovely. Perhaps it was the company. Perhaps it was the dishes themselves. Or maybe it was the place where they were served. Picture it. That special meal back in your mind. Alive again. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MEYER: Just before my twelfth birthday, my dad – who was in the travel business back in St. Louis – found himself negotiating to lease two different hotels in Rome. The good news for me and my family was that his negotiations were taking place not only during our two-week spring vacation but also during my twelfth birthday. That was the first time I ever went to Rome and I remember on the actual day of my birthday having a twelve course pasta tasting dinner. It was a revelation to me. A complete revelation. Just the discovery of all these flavors and foods and people and places that I'd never experienced growing up. The next day, my dad took us all to a famous old restaurant in Trastevere called Da Meo Patacca. Immediately, it hits me: the garlicky wafts of tomato sauce. The warm laughter around the tiny tables. All of my senses are suddenly awake. I’ve never seen a restaurant like this, and I’ve never had food like this. There was the pasta of course… And the platters overflowing with artichokes! I had had artichokes back home in St. Louis – you know, the big, round ones, which my mom would sometimes boil to death, the leaves then dipped into melted butter. But I’ve never seen these long artichokes, fried and smashed into carciofi alla guida. And the roast baby lamb, abbacchio, with its odd cuts and tiny bones that are so succulent. GUNATILLAKE: What a place and what a meal. Can you imagine sitting there at young Danny's table? What would most capture your attention: the smells, the tastes, the spectacle? MEYER: It’s an entirely different world from what I know growing up in St. Louis. Back home, I’m used to the flavors of the American Midwest. The mellow experience of growing up there as a kid in the ‘60s, a somewhat repetitive culinary experience. Think: curb-side burgers, frozen custard, St. Louis-style pizza topped with Provel, which is basically a lot of different cheeses combined, to the point where it doesn’t really taste like cheese at all. But in Rome, everything tastes exactly as you’d hope it would. And the food in Rome was the great discovery of my life. I would go on to visit Europe every few years as a kid – and now as often as possible as an adult. These early trips are filled with delight which continues over the course of my travels. The delight is always connected to discovery. I’ve come to believe this sense of discovery can be as nourishing as food itself. But discovery means different things to different people. For some people, discovery is about seeing something unexpected; for others, it’s about doing something they didn’t know they were capable of. In my case, the discovery is connected to things I get to taste. My passion for food is the portal that connects me most deeply to the world. Every time I taste something delicious, what fascinates me is: Who came up with the idea, what can I learn about it? What does it say about the people who made it? I’ll never forget the first time I finally figured out that almost every Roman trattoria has the exact same pastas on the menu and every one of them is related. There’s the cacio e pepe, which is simply spaghetti with pecorino cheese, olive oil, and lots of black pepper. Then by simply adding guanciale, the bacon that comes from the cheek of the pig, it becomes spaghetti alla gricia. Or, by adding eggs, that same exact recipe becomes spaghetti alla carbonara. And if you omit the eggs and add tomato sauce instead, you get spaghetti alla amatriciana. Four different pastas, all related. What impresses me isn’t always the complexity of the idea; sometimes it’s the simplicity. Something that impacted me from a young age about Italy was the emphasis on ingredients. Great Italian cooks really cherish, respect their ingredients. A little olive oil and salt doesn’t provide much disguise if the tomato itself isn’t perfectly sun-ripened, or if the basil isn’t fragrant. I remember a spaghetti alla carbonara, melanzane alla parmigiana, vongole veraci – the tiny clams that would open just as they were kissed by the garlic, olive oil, and spaghetti with which they were meant to marry. All so simple and unadorned. One of the things I discovered about myself in Rome, that I prize wherever I find it, is an Italian word called sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is what happens when the food – or the painting or the athletic endeavour or the architecture – comes across as having been effortless, and yet the quality belies that. In other words, you can dig into a bowl of pasta that is so amazing and makes you so happy, and you know how much work must have gone into it – and yet, you look at that bowl of pasta and it appears to be effortless. That’s sprezzatura. Today, that very ethos informs everything I do. How can this feel more timeless? How can the dining room be a little less designed, the dessert a little less composed? It’s a mindset of being understated, pared back. Letting the fundamentals shine. It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing that more is better. Whenever I find myself thinking this way, I remind myself of the simple bowls of pasta I discovered in Rome. And the little things that make all the difference. GUNATILLAKE: What little things can you notice right now around you? Even if they seem familiar, can you see, hear, or feel them with real freshness? There can be so much joy to being a tourist wherever you are. MEYER: In Rome, I also discovered the way the restaurant itself can transform a meal: the earthy terracotta floors, the checkered tablecloths, the domed brick ceiling, and a warm glow of table lanterns. The tables are closer together than I’ve ever seen in St. Louis. In the trattorias of Rome, no matter where you sit, you feel the buzzing energy of everyone around you. It’s that energy – the locals, the music of the motorcycles everywhere – all around. I find an irresistibly chaotic cacophony, and it almost always leads to a really good meal. There’s something about the different kinds of energy that heighten my senses. I feel connected to the people around me – and present. Still today, there’s nowhere I feel more at home – or more alive – than at a trattoria. I think I learned from these trattorias to pay attention to the tiny details. I’ll never forget how odd it was when I first came to New York and I realized that, unlike St. Louis where I’d grown up, you don’t get a little lemon zest with your espresso. And why was it in New York, unlike Rome, the cappuccino was known for how tall the foam was, almost as if someone was trying to create the Matterhorn mountain on top of the cup. And now today, something that you would also never seen in Rome, New York places always try to design the foam. So many people go in search of grand revelations. But I find discoveries everywhere I look. Even in little things, like the foam on my coffee. Italy is still my favorite place to go in search of these tiny discoveries. There's just something about Rome that to this day, I feel like I must have lived there in a previous life. I go to the market and smell every single thing that can be smelled. I stop for three or four coffees even when I don’t need coffee – because how can I not? I notice the milk, the cups, the tiny chocolate or treat served on the side. And every time I pass one of those iconic drinking fountains, the ones you see all over Rome, I stop and drink from it. Like the city itself, like travel itself, the fountains of Rome rejuvenate me to continue my tour of discovery. GUNATILLAKE: I have to be honest, I had to look up sprezzatura in the dictionary. It was a new word and idea to me, but I love it. In one place I saw it translated as ‘studied carelessness’, when something has the appearance of having just been thrown together but actually has been the result of meticulous skilled work. So Italian. All of which made me wonder what would be the most sprezzatura of meditation techniques? And the one that came to mind right away is one called noting. So that’s what we’re going to try a little bit of now. So let’s get ready. If you’re sitting, sitting comfortably. If you’re standing, standing comfortably. However your body is, seeing if you can let it express the qualities of both alertness and relaxation. Uprightness in the spine supporting alertness. Softness in the belly supporting relaxation and openness. Enjoying resting your awareness in the body. Letting your awareness fill the whole of your body. From the touch of your feet on the ground to the top of your head. Being present. Present in the body. Simple. Whole. And Here. And now that we have established ourselves in awareness of the body we’re going to play a little game. And the rules are quite simple. At any one time, there will be a particular aspect of your inner experience which is most prominent, which most stands out, where your attention is drawn to. Be interested in what that is, and the game is to simply say its name out loud. And if you’re not sure what’s most prominent, then simply say “not sure”, and by definition you’re naming what is happening. That might not be clear, so let me do an example: Tension. Touch. Tingling. Planning. Thinking. Not sure. Calm. That’s all it is. What we’re doing is being aware of what’s most prominent inside ourselves and saying its name out loud. Nothing more to it. It’s actually quite straightforward. So do give that a go yourself. And if it doesn’t feel right to say the words out loud, just say them internally to yourself. I’ll start again and when I stop, it’s over to you: Touch. Tingling. Not sure. Grateful. Calm. Ok now you, just naming what is happening while it’s happening. That might have felt odd or it might have felt great. Either way, this is one of my favorite mindfulness techniques around, because if mindfulness is knowing what’s happening inside yourself while it’s happening, then doing this noting technique is as pure a form of mindfulness as we can get. Ok. Letting your awareness fill the whole body again. Noticing the energy that’s here, the momentum from having done the exercise. Building back our reserves of stability and balance. And let’s give it another go. Again I’ll start off and then it’s over to you. Just naming what’s happening in your inner experience, whatever’s most prominent. If that’s a physical sensation, then naming that physical sensation. If it’s a mental process, naming that mental process. There are only a few simple rules to keep in mind. Keep the rhythm going nicely so that your mindfulness is good and constant. If you’re thinking about dinner, the thing you should note is thinking rather than dinner since what is happening is the thinking, not the dinner. And if you’re not sure what’s happening then just note not sure. And you’ll be right. Oh and have fun. Again, I’ll start you off: Tingling. Not sure. Relaxation. Itching. Amusement. Thinking. Now over to you. Nicely done. I hope that was fun. And I also hope that you can see why I think it’s a technique of real sprezzatura. Because while deceptively simple on the outside, it belies the fact that what you need to do to make it happen is a really strong foundation in mindfulness and an alive and alert mind. You might have really connected with this technique or it might not have worked for you this first time around, that’s totally normal. If you do like it, remember it’s entirely portable. Every moment is a chance to note what’s happening inside. Every moment is another stop on your tour of discovery.
How to find—and feed—your passion
ATTENTION
Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, Shake Shack, The Modern, and more. Meyer and USHG have won 28 James Beard Foundation Awards. Meyer is also the author of multiple books, including the IACP Julia Child Award winner The Union Square Cafe Cookbook and the New York Times best seller Setting the Table.
About Danny Meyer
INSPIRATION
INSPIRATION
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To help me deepen my understanding of meditation, I spent a fair amount of time in my 20s travelling around the world learning from different teachers and styles. And when in Thailand I came across the saying: “same, same but different.” It’s one of those phrases which you hear everywhere, and even see on the occasional t-shirt. Jane’s story brought it back to my mind. Her and her sister: same, same but different. In the Zen tradition there’s the saying: not one, not two. Not one, not two. I love the mystery of those words, designed to point to the interdependency of things.
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
From the closing meditation
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Jane McGonigal
clarity
Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
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Game designer and twin Jane McGonigal on the notion of similarity and divergence, of sharing not only DNA but talents, interests, personality – and where these likenesses diverge.
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Jane McGonigal is a game designer and the author of the books "Reality is Broken" and "SuperBetter." In her work as a game designer, she focuses on using mobile and digital tech to channel positive attitudes. She's also the Chief Science Officer at SuperBetter Labs.
About Jane McGonigal
JANE MCGONIGAL
Acceptance
JANE MCGONIGAL: Having an identical twin means being able to see someone who looks so similar to you, and to have such an intimacy growing up, that you can really see a parallel universe of choices that can be made or taken. I think we all have an imaginary twin – that alternate reality version of ourselves who made a different decision, or took a different path, or never had that injury or illness. We can all imagine living those alternate lives and occupying those different bodies. And we can either torment ourselves with that, or we can embrace and celebrate the creativity and intention that goes into being our unique selves. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve loved the work of this week’s storyteller for over a decade now. Her ideas about using all parts of our lives as a playground, of how games can be used to drive personal and social change, have been deeply influential to my work. But in today’s story, Jane McGonigal, game designer and author of Reality is Broken and SuperBetter, shares something very different and very personal. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance to enhance your experience as you listen. I hope these prompts will be helpful to you. And before we hear from Jane, I’d like you to smile. When I think back to the couple of times I’ve met Jane in person over the years, what comes to mind is her energy and her joy. So smile, even if you don’t feel like it. Especially if you don’t feel like it. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MCGONIGAL: When I look in the mirror, I see the tear first. It’s not where you would expect it to be, not falling from an eye, or running down one cheek. Instead, it rests right between my eyes, or more precisely, between my eyebrows. Such a strange place for a tear. You shouldn’t be there. How did you get there? I’ve been asking this question since I was six. I’m now 41. I know the answer. This teardrop shape is a scar. One that I made all by myself, by scratching furiously at chicken pox that all the grown-ups told me not to scratch. That one little pox in the center of my face was the itchiest. I couldn’t keep my fingers off it. It scarred into the teardrop shape it keeps today. So yes, I know how it got there. But I guess what I was really asking, for so many years, was, “How did it get on my face, and not on hers?” Her. My identical twin sister, Kelly. When I say identical, I mean identical. We are mirror images – or at least we started out that way. It’s a family legend that for the first two years of our lives, our mom and dad kept a green ribbon tied around Kelly’s wrist so they wouldn’t mix us up. That’s how similar we were. “Green for Kelly green,” the color of the lush Irish landscape. See the green ribbon? That’s Kelly. No green ribbon? Must be Jane! Later, as we got older, she and I wondered if they really had mixed us up, once, twice, a dozen times. What if they’d lost track of that green ribbon? What if they tied it on the wrong wrist? I would ask my sister, “What if I’m really Kelly? What if you’re really Jane?” And we would sit there, pondering deeply, the almost nonsensical question: Am I still the same person, if really, I was supposed to be you? Looking at our family photo album of pictures taken in the years after the ribbon went away, Kelly and I still have to play a guessing game. “Is that you in the photo? Or is it me?” even our parents, looking at the same photos, can’t say for sure. On the back of some photos, in my dad’s scratchy handwriting, you can sometimes see written in ballpoint ink the year, followed by the location of the photo, and then one of our names ‘Jane’ or ‘Kelly’ followed by a question mark. Jane? Kelly? Who can say? Sometimes I think I interpreted that question mark as implying maybe it didn’t even matter which one of us it was. Maybe that’s why the first physical difference felt so important. That chicken pox scar, which I made it with my own two hands. It was the first visible sign, clear as day to anyone looking at us, that we were two different people. Throughout elementary and middle school, whenever we met someone new, and they would invariably say something like, “Wow! You’re so identical!” I would cheerfully point to my forehead and say, “Aha! But I’ve got this scar!” In other words, “See me! I’m Jane! Please don’t say it doesn’t matter which one is which!” But that question was always there. What did this scar mean? Why did I get one, and not Kelly? To my child mind, this was SUCH an important question. Why did she get to keep the perfect face, the best possible version of our DNA, while I would now have to be the imperfect version of us? When everyone sees you as the same, the tiniest difference can seem to hold so much meaning. GUNATILLAKE: You may not be a twin, but can you remember the first time when you felt different from the people around you, your family, your friends? Take a moment to observe how you see yourself relative to someone else you love. MCGONIGAL: I still try to make meaning of it today. I try to see in that six-year-old version of me the seeds of the unique individual I am now, to see some clues to who Kelly and I would become. I can say for sure that I’m more strongly goal-oriented than my twin sister. I’m the gamer, I’m the one drawn to competitive sports. I often think of myself in some kind of purposeful battle, whether I’m overcoming a concussion or working with the World Bank to try to stop climate change. Looking back to that early, identity-defining war with the chicken pox on my face, it feels like that scar grew out of some inner drive to fight, to go to battle, to best the virus in some strange, elemental way. I just could not let that itch win. Meanwhile, my sister Kelly, who blissfully resisted that same impulse, would grow up to earn a PhD in psychology and write a world-famous, bestselling book on the science of willpower. The secrets of which she clearly had already mastered at a very, very young age. Somehow, in those two different outcomes, scar and no scar, we were already becoming something other than identical, pushing against the destiny of our DNA, by making choices, exercising free will, forging our own unique lives. Or maybe, when the primary way people tell you apart from your twin is through physical scars, then you start to see yourself that way; it shapes your personality. Which comes first: the chicken or the egg? The chicken pox or the itch for adventure? As we got older, it wasn’t just the chicken pox scar anymore. In high school, I broke my nose – I was hit in the face with a softball pitch. It didn’t heal properly, so now I had a scar and a bump. I still look at her nose and think, “Ah, the nose I could have had.” My brain has scars too, from multiple concussions, one that was pretty serious. If you compared our brains in an FMRI machine, I’m sure you could see that difference, too. In many ways, I feel like the “after” picture in a bizarre “before” and “after” series, where the after is worse for the wear. After this injury, after this illness, after this trauma. It was our senior year of college, and I was studying in New York City, and Kelly was visiting me from Boston. She stopped by the office where I was interning, met all my colleagues, and as soon as she left, one of them came over to me, looking almost in awe, and said, “Wow, Jane. Your sister is gorgeous. I mean, she is STUNNING!” I wanted to say, “Wait, we’re identical twins. Why are you surprised by how she looks? It was clear what he meant. She was gorgeous, I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t say he was wrong. Some days, I do feel like I’m just the battered, beat up version of her, or I should say, the battered, beat-up version of us. On good days, I’m at peace with that. I feel like there's something about my personality that's just a little more like “bring it on, life, do you worst to me.” And that’s actually, I think, the best part of me. That desire to rise to the occasion, to seek out adventure, to not back off from battle. And maybe that difference was there at birth. GUNATILLAKE: What aspect of your personality is the best part of you? Dropping any thoughts of self-judgement just for now, can you name a quality that others really appreciate in you. And appreciating it yourself. No judgement, just recognition. MCGONIGAL: To me, that is a wondrous thing. That two people, born with identical DNA, raised in the same house, by the same parents, breathing the same air, eating the same food, could still somehow be two different people. We talk about the effects of nature versus nurture. But there is something else, a third thing, because despite sharing the same nature and sharing the same nurture, we exerted some unique soul-force and became who we are. Not who we were meant to be, but who we meant to be. The biggest, most profound difference in that before and after series that I play out in my mind, is that I became a parent and she didn’t. I have twin daughters now myself. it’s like the Einstein twin paradox where you send one identical twin into space, traveling at the speed of light, and the other twin stays on earth, and because of the theory of relativity, the space-traveling twin doesn't age and comes back to Earth and everybody, including their own twin, is 70 years older. I think that's what parenting is like. If you have the same DNA as somebody else and then you become a parent, for every one year they age, you age seven years. It’s just the constant physical and emotional stress, the lack of sleep, the constant caretaking, not having time to eat healthy and exercise as much, always being sick with every cold and virus that your kid catches. There's a very strange physical sensation, every time I see Kelly now, it's like looking in a funhouse mirror. A mirror that shows, more than ever, a different version of me, a me with more energy, more ability, a me I could have been, a me my DNA set me up to be. The act of having a child and becoming a parent, you're never the same. It changes how your brain works. It changes how your body responds to stress. I think a lot of people feel like when they become a parent, there's another version of themselves that they left behind to go on this journey. And how do you now accept that you're not at peak physicality? Or peak productivity? That's how I feel. I feel very underperforming in some areas of my life right now, because of the care and energy required as a parent. But then at the same time, I feel like I'm at peak love. Never in my life have I been so loving and put so much time and energy into that, and never in my life have I received so much love back. For me, the love that I’m feeling constantly everyday, the love I get to give and the love I get to receive, and the love that my husband and I get to experience together as a team, it’s worth the battle scars. Having an identical twin, you really see the toll of your life choices. And it’s not that you regret any of it, but you really are forced to look at how the choices you make change you. I'm sure Kelly has her own experience of that. I’m sure she doesn’t always feel like the more perfect version of me. I’m sure she sees her own scars, her own choices. My twins are fraternal and nobody mixes them up. One is already 3 inches taller than the other. They have different eye colors. And it’s not just physical. Their personalities are different. One of them is super extroverted. There might be only one other person in the room, but she’s lit up like she’s on the Broadway stage, performing to the last person in the back row of the balcony, every moment of the day. My other daughter is a listener. She asks amazing questions. She approaches the world like a scientist. My twins being fraternal is a totally different experience of twin-ness. I don't worry about them having to forcibly show the world that they are two unique people I don’t have to wait until one of them has a scar. They are already their own fully-formed unique selves – and maybe that's something that I didn't understand about my own twin-ness. What I know about them, that I didn’t know about myself, is that the differences I see in their personalities and bodies may be as temporary as the Kelly green ribbon my parents put on my sister’s wrist. I’m not going to define them in comparison to each other, because they’re always changing, always creating and recreating themselves. GUNATILLAKE: Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the air on your face. Watch the fluidity in your own self right now, sensations coming and going, thoughts coming and going. Is anything really fixed? MCGONIGAL: Having an identical twin means being able to see someone who looks so similar to you, and to have such an intimacy growing up, that you can really see a parallel universe of choices that can be made or taken. But having an identical other didn’t define me, because I think we all have an imaginary twin – that alternate reality version of ourselves who made a different decision, or took a different path, or never had that injury or illness. We can all imagine living those alternate lives and occupying those different bodies, and we can either torment ourselves with that, or we can embrace and celebrate the creativity and intention that goes into being our unique selves and bringing our unique selves into existence every day, physically, mentally, and in our relationships to others. We don’t have to live in a state of comparison to our imagined possible selves, or to anyone else for that matter. However you came to be who you are today, there is no other version of you. You created yourself, and no one else – identical DNA or not – could ever replicate the unique and wondrous version that you created, choice by choice and scar by scar and adventure by adventure. What I’ve learned is you can’t look to anyone else for a reflection of yourself. Your story is in your mirror, in your body, in your home, in your truth. GUNATILLAKE: To help me deepen my understanding of meditation, I spent a fair amount of time in my 20s travelling around the world learning from different teachers and styles. And when in Thailand I came across the saying: “same, same but different.” It’s one of those phrases which you hear everywhere, and even see on the occasional t-shirt. Jane’s story brought it back to my mind. Her and her sister: same, same but different. In the Zen tradition there’s the saying: not one, not two. Not one, not two. I love the mystery of those words, designed to point to the interdependency of things. And that’s the idea we’re going to play with in this short practice together. And the interdependence we’ll start with is that of body with mind, mind with body. So letting your body be however it is. And being interested, gently interested into what sensation or area of sensation – right now in this moment – is most prominent. There’s no wrong answer. What sensation is the most prominent for you in the body? Letting go of that now. Taking a breath. Aware and alert. Taking another breath if you like. Now, letting your mind be however it is. And being curious, gently curious into what mood or mindstate is present. Asking the question, sensing the answer, giving the mindstate a name. For me it’s a subtle kind of joy as I imagine you listening to this. What is it for you? There’s no wrong answer. What’s your mind like right now? Give it a name. Now, can you sense into the relationship between body and mind? Their interdependence. The body, it’s posture, it’s stance, it’s relaxation or lack thereof, a reflection of mind. Your mindstate influenced in turn by your body and your environment. Mental, physical, not two, not one. You can play with this by smiling. Smile, even if you don’t feel like it. Let your face, your body, lift up a smile. And notice any positive movement in your mind, any thoughts, any feelings. Letting that go. And now bringinging to mind a happy memory. The happiest you can possibly remember. And notice how your body responds. Mind changing body, body changing mind. Letting that go now too. Ok. Now let’s take that interdependence to the next level. And see if you can hold both body and mind in your awareness at the same time. Aware of how your body is as a whole. Aware of how your mind is. Together. United. Mind and body united in awareness, held in awareness. Body and mind. Identical twins. Separate but not really. Not one, not two. The knowing and that which is known, not two, not one. Interdependent. And full of life. A life full of choices, perhaps some scars. And with a bit of luck, adventure.
From the closing meditation
Jane McGonigal
JANE MCGONIGAL: Having an identical twin means being able to see someone who looks so similar to you, and to have such an intimacy growing up, that you can really see a parallel universe of choices that can be made or taken. I think we all have an imaginary twin – that alternate reality version of ourselves who made a different decision, or took a different path, or never had that injury or illness. We can all imagine living those alternate lives and occupying those different bodies. And we can either torment ourselves with that, or we can embrace and celebrate the creativity and intention that goes into being our unique selves. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: I’ve loved the work of this week’s storyteller for over a decade now. Her ideas about using all parts of our lives as a playground, of how games can be used to drive personal and social change, have been deeply influential to my work. But in today’s story, Jane McGonigal, game designer and author of Reality is Broken and SuperBetter, shares something very different and very personal. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with guidance to enhance your experience as you listen. I hope these prompts will be helpful to you. And before we hear from Jane, I’d like you to smile. When I think back to the couple of times I’ve met Jane in person over the years, what comes to mind is her energy and her joy. So smile, even if you don’t feel like it. Especially if you don’t feel like it. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. MCGONIGAL: When I look in the mirror, I see the tear first. It’s not where you would expect it to be, not falling from an eye, or running down one cheek. Instead, it rests right between my eyes, or more precisely, between my eyebrows. Such a strange place for a tear. You shouldn’t be there. How did you get there? I’ve been asking this question since I was six. I’m now 41. I know the answer. This teardrop shape is a scar. One that I made all by myself, by scratching furiously at chicken pox that all the grown-ups told me not to scratch. That one little pox in the center of my face was the itchiest. I couldn’t keep my fingers off it. It scarred into the teardrop shape it keeps today. So yes, I know how it got there. But I guess what I was really asking, for so many years, was, “How did it get on my face, and not on hers?” Her. My identical twin sister, Kelly. When I say identical, I mean identical. We are mirror images – or at least we started out that way. It’s a family legend that for the first two years of our lives, our mom and dad kept a green ribbon tied around Kelly’s wrist so they wouldn’t mix us up. That’s how similar we were. “Green for Kelly green,” the color of the lush Irish landscape. See the green ribbon? That’s Kelly. No green ribbon? Must be Jane! Later, as we got older, she and I wondered if they really had mixed us up, once, twice, a dozen times. What if they’d lost track of that green ribbon? What if they tied it on the wrong wrist? I would ask my sister, “What if I’m really Kelly? What if you’re really Jane?” And we would sit there, pondering deeply, the almost nonsensical question: Am I still the same person, if really, I was supposed to be you? Looking at our family photo album of pictures taken in the years after the ribbon went away, Kelly and I still have to play a guessing game. “Is that you in the photo? Or is it me?” even our parents, looking at the same photos, can’t say for sure. On the back of some photos, in my dad’s scratchy handwriting, you can sometimes see written in ballpoint ink the year, followed by the location of the photo, and then one of our names ‘Jane’ or ‘Kelly’ followed by a question mark. Jane? Kelly? Who can say? Sometimes I think I interpreted that question mark as implying maybe it didn’t even matter which one of us it was. Maybe that’s why the first physical difference felt so important. That chicken pox scar, which I made it with my own two hands. It was the first visible sign, clear as day to anyone looking at us, that we were two different people. Throughout elementary and middle school, whenever we met someone new, and they would invariably say something like, “Wow! You’re so identical!” I would cheerfully point to my forehead and say, “Aha! But I’ve got this scar!” In other words, “See me! I’m Jane! Please don’t say it doesn’t matter which one is which!” But that question was always there. What did this scar mean? Why did I get one, and not Kelly? To my child mind, this was SUCH an important question. Why did she get to keep the perfect face, the best possible version of our DNA, while I would now have to be the imperfect version of us? When everyone sees you as the same, the tiniest difference can seem to hold so much meaning. GUNATILLAKE: You may not be a twin, but can you remember the first time when you felt different from the people around you, your family, your friends? Take a moment to observe how you see yourself relative to someone else you love. MCGONIGAL: I still try to make meaning of it today. I try to see in that six-year-old version of me the seeds of the unique individual I am now, to see some clues to who Kelly and I would become. I can say for sure that I’m more strongly goal-oriented than my twin sister. I’m the gamer, I’m the one drawn to competitive sports. I often think of myself in some kind of purposeful battle, whether I’m overcoming a concussion or working with the World Bank to try to stop climate change. Looking back to that early, identity-defining war with the chicken pox on my face, it feels like that scar grew out of some inner drive to fight, to go to battle, to best the virus in some strange, elemental way. I just could not let that itch win. Meanwhile, my sister Kelly, who blissfully resisted that same impulse, would grow up to earn a PhD in psychology and write a world-famous, bestselling book on the science of willpower. The secrets of which she clearly had already mastered at a very, very young age. Somehow, in those two different outcomes, scar and no scar, we were already becoming something other than identical, pushing against the destiny of our DNA, by making choices, exercising free will, forging our own unique lives. Or maybe, when the primary way people tell you apart from your twin is through physical scars, then you start to see yourself that way; it shapes your personality. Which comes first: the chicken or the egg? The chicken pox or the itch for adventure? As we got older, it wasn’t just the chicken pox scar anymore. In high school, I broke my nose – I was hit in the face with a softball pitch. It didn’t heal properly, so now I had a scar and a bump. I still look at her nose and think, “Ah, the nose I could have had.” My brain has scars too, from multiple concussions, one that was pretty serious. If you compared our brains in an FMRI machine, I’m sure you could see that difference, too. In many ways, I feel like the “after” picture in a bizarre “before” and “after” series, where the after is worse for the wear. After this injury, after this illness, after this trauma. It was our senior year of college, and I was studying in New York City, and Kelly was visiting me from Boston. She stopped by the office where I was interning, met all my colleagues, and as soon as she left, one of them came over to me, looking almost in awe, and said, “Wow, Jane. Your sister is gorgeous. I mean, she is STUNNING!” I wanted to say, “Wait, we’re identical twins. Why are you surprised by how she looks? It was clear what he meant. She was gorgeous, I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t say he was wrong. Some days, I do feel like I’m just the battered, beat up version of her, or I should say, the battered, beat-up version of us. On good days, I’m at peace with that. I feel like there's something about my personality that's just a little more like “bring it on, life, do you worst to me.” And that’s actually, I think, the best part of me. That desire to rise to the occasion, to seek out adventure, to not back off from battle. And maybe that difference was there at birth. GUNATILLAKE: What aspect of your personality is the best part of you? Dropping any thoughts of self-judgement just for now, can you name a quality that others really appreciate in you. And appreciating it yourself. No judgement, just recognition. MCGONIGAL: To me, that is a wondrous thing. That two people, born with identical DNA, raised in the same house, by the same parents, breathing the same air, eating the same food, could still somehow be two different people. We talk about the effects of nature versus nurture. But there is something else, a third thing, because despite sharing the same nature and sharing the same nurture, we exerted some unique soul-force and became who we are. Not who we were meant to be, but who we meant to be. The biggest, most profound difference in that before and after series that I play out in my mind, is that I became a parent and she didn’t. I have twin daughters now myself. it’s like the Einstein twin paradox where you send one identical twin into space, traveling at the speed of light, and the other twin stays on earth, and because of the theory of relativity, the space-traveling twin doesn't age and comes back to Earth and everybody, including their own twin, is 70 years older. I think that's what parenting is like. If you have the same DNA as somebody else and then you become a parent, for every one year they age, you age seven years. It’s just the constant physical and emotional stress, the lack of sleep, the constant caretaking, not having time to eat healthy and exercise as much, always being sick with every cold and virus that your kid catches. There's a very strange physical sensation, every time I see Kelly now, it's like looking in a funhouse mirror. A mirror that shows, more than ever, a different version of me, a me with more energy, more ability, a me I could have been, a me my DNA set me up to be. The act of having a child and becoming a parent, you're never the same. It changes how your brain works. It changes how your body responds to stress. I think a lot of people feel like when they become a parent, there's another version of themselves that they left behind to go on this journey. And how do you now accept that you're not at peak physicality? Or peak productivity? That's how I feel. I feel very underperforming in some areas of my life right now, because of the care and energy required as a parent. But then at the same time, I feel like I'm at peak love. Never in my life have I been so loving and put so much time and energy into that, and never in my life have I received so much love back. For me, the love that I’m feeling constantly everyday, the love I get to give and the love I get to receive, and the love that my husband and I get to experience together as a team, it’s worth the battle scars. Having an identical twin, you really see the toll of your life choices. And it’s not that you regret any of it, but you really are forced to look at how the choices you make change you. I'm sure Kelly has her own experience of that. I’m sure she doesn’t always feel like the more perfect version of me. I’m sure she sees her own scars, her own choices. My twins are fraternal and nobody mixes them up. One is already 3 inches taller than the other. They have different eye colors. And it’s not just physical. Their personalities are different. One of them is super extroverted. There might be only one other person in the room, but she’s lit up like she’s on the Broadway stage, performing to the last person in the back row of the balcony, every moment of the day. My other daughter is a listener. She asks amazing questions. She approaches the world like a scientist. My twins being fraternal is a totally different experience of twin-ness. I don't worry about them having to forcibly show the world that they are two unique people I don’t have to wait until one of them has a scar. They are already their own fully-formed unique selves – and maybe that's something that I didn't understand about my own twin-ness. What I know about them, that I didn’t know about myself, is that the differences I see in their personalities and bodies may be as temporary as the Kelly green ribbon my parents put on my sister’s wrist. I’m not going to define them in comparison to each other, because they’re always changing, always creating and recreating themselves. GUNATILLAKE: Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the air on your face. Watch the fluidity in your own self right now, sensations coming and going, thoughts coming and going. Is anything really fixed? MCGONIGAL: Having an identical twin means being able to see someone who looks so similar to you, and to have such an intimacy growing up, that you can really see a parallel universe of choices that can be made or taken. But having an identical other didn’t define me, because I think we all have an imaginary twin – that alternate reality version of ourselves who made a different decision, or took a different path, or never had that injury or illness. We can all imagine living those alternate lives and occupying those different bodies, and we can either torment ourselves with that, or we can embrace and celebrate the creativity and intention that goes into being our unique selves and bringing our unique selves into existence every day, physically, mentally, and in our relationships to others. We don’t have to live in a state of comparison to our imagined possible selves, or to anyone else for that matter. However you came to be who you are today, there is no other version of you. You created yourself, and no one else – identical DNA or not – could ever replicate the unique and wondrous version that you created, choice by choice and scar by scar and adventure by adventure. What I’ve learned is you can’t look to anyone else for a reflection of yourself. Your story is in your mirror, in your body, in your home, in your truth. GUNATILLAKE: To help me deepen my understanding of meditation, I spent a fair amount of time in my 20s travelling around the world learning from different teachers and styles. And when in Thailand I came across the saying: “same, same but different.” It’s one of those phrases which you hear everywhere, and even see on the occasional t-shirt. Jane’s story brought it back to my mind. Her and her sister: same, same but different. In the Zen tradition there’s the saying: not one, not two. Not one, not two. I love the mystery of those words, designed to point to the interdependency of things. And that’s the idea we’re going to play with in this short practice together. And the interdependence we’ll start with is that of body with mind, mind with body. So letting your body be however it is. And being interested, gently interested into what sensation or area of sensation – right now in this moment – is most prominent. There’s no wrong answer. What sensation is the most prominent for you in the body? Letting go of that now. Taking a breath. Aware and alert. Taking another breath if you like. Now, letting your mind be however it is. And being curious, gently curious into what mood or mindstate is present. Asking the question, sensing the answer, giving the mindstate a name. For me it’s a subtle kind of joy as I imagine you listening to this. What is it for you? There’s no wrong answer. What’s your mind like right now? Give it a name. Now, can you sense into the relationship between body and mind? Their interdependence. The body, it’s posture, it’s stance, it’s relaxation or lack thereof, a reflection of mind. Your mindstate influenced in turn by your body and your environment. Mental, physical, not two, not one. You can play with this by smiling. Smile, even if you don’t feel like it. Let your face, your body, lift up a smile. And notice any positive movement in your mind, any thoughts, any feelings. Letting that go. And now bringinging to mind a happy memory. The happiest you can possibly remember. And notice how your body responds. Mind changing body, body changing mind. Letting that go now too. Ok. Now let’s take that interdependence to the next level. And see if you can hold both body and mind in your awareness at the same time. Aware of how your body is as a whole. Aware of how your mind is. Together. United. Mind and body united in awareness, held in awareness. Body and mind. Identical twins. Separate but not really. Not one, not two. The knowing and that which is known, not two, not one. Interdependent. And full of life. A life full of choices, perhaps some scars. And with a bit of luck, adventure.
Finding my own reflection
About Jane McGonigal
Acceptance
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Clarity
JANE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Game designer and author Jane McGonigal shares a story born in her DNA. She's an identitical twin and on her sister's face she sees both a window into a parallel life – of a different path taken – and a reflection of her own choices. And while those distorted images once made her question her very existence, she nows finds peace in knowing that she is who she is meant to be.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Game designer and author Jane McGonigal shares a story born in her DNA. She's an identical twin, and on her sister's face she can see a window into a parallel life, a different path taken. While this doubled image once made her question her own existence, she has found peace in knowing that the person she's become is the person she's meant to be.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Episode Transcript
Jane McGonigal is a game designer and the author of the books "Reality is Broken" and "SuperBetter." In her work as a game designer, she focuses on using mobile and digital tech to channel positive attitudes. She's also the Chief Science Officer at SuperBetter Labs.
Episode Transcript
Jane Mcgonigal
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Finding my own reflection
JANE'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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"See yourself in a bigger frame. Peter was just one little human moving through a landscape of endless trees and trees and trees. That view gave him perspective and space from his personal drama, which otherwise might have felt so constricting and overwhelming. So zoom out and imagine yourself, see yourself where you are. Just one human in a landscape full of so much stuff that is not your drama, not your storyline. If there’s peace here, enjoy it."
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
From the closing meditation
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INSPIRATION
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Peter Sagal
FOCUS
NPR host Peter Sagal shares the story of a motorcycle trip he took through the middle of America – and how it gave him the space he needed to navigate.
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NPR host Peter Sagal shares the story of a motorcycle trip he took through the middle of America – and how it gave him the space he needed to navigate.
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Peter Sagal is a writer and host of the NPR game show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and the PBS special "Constitution USA with Peter Sagal." He's also the author of The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them).
About Peter Sagal
PETER SAGAL
PRESENCE
PETER SAGAL: And yet, with all the necessity of paying perfect attention to what I’m doing, or maybe because of that, my thoughts still flow, in a more coherent way than they have in a while. My mind is also able to roam backwards and forwards over my life, past, present, and future. I think of my kids and what will happen to them. I remember a hundred moments from our lives together, a life which either has profoundly changed or perhaps even ended. I think of being alone in this moment – gloriously, completely, alone, my mind protected by a full-face helmet, enclosing myself with myself – and how long that solitude will last, and how long I might want it to. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Have you ever been on a motorbike? Even if you've not, it’s such a romantic notion. The freedom, the space, being so connected to both machine and nature at the same time. Peter Sagal is a long-time biker and host of NPR’s “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”. Today, he shares a Meditative Story about a trip through the American Midwest which gave him the space that he needed – inside and out – to navigate a difficult time in his life. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with brief guidance for a deeper connection to the story and what’s happening in your own experience as you listen. So before Peter begins, we’ll take a moment together. You might be moving while you listen to this, walking, in a car, on a train. If you’re moving, notice how you’re moving. Notice the change in what’s around you. And notice what, if anything, stays the same. If you’re still, maybe lying down or sitting, notice how you’re still. Enjoy that. And notice if there are any parts of your experience which are in movement. Your breathing. The air on your skin. The muscles in your face if you choose to smile. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. SAGAL: It is the summer of 2013. My marriage has recently broken up, and my hopes for an amicable, non-confrontational, and inexpensive split have been dashed like a watermelon falling from a great height. My soon-to-be ex-wife is taking the kids away for a trip, with myself pointedly not invited, and so I have two weeks off from work with nothing to occupy myself, and that in and of itself is a danger. Without anything I need to do, I tend to distract myself in a variety of unhealthy ways. With so much trouble swirling around, I know myself enough to know that I will do anything to avoid thinking about it. I’ll stare at the internet or TV screens or seek any other kind of distraction in order to not give myself a moment to confront what I’m facing. I look around for something to focus on. I see that the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, is happening right in the middle of my break. It’s a legendary event, attended by more than a 100,000 riders every year. Why not one more? There is no quieter place I know than the saddle of a motorcycle. Motorcycles themselves, of course, can be loud, although they’re not supposed to be as loud as the ones who pull up next to you at a stoplight and pierce your glass shell with their insecure roaring. A modern stock motorcycle, though, with its electronically controlled four stroke engine and street legal mufflers – like my 2013 Triumph Bonneville T-100 – sounds almost as polite as a family sedan. Riding it, the exhaust notes are hard to hear over the wind blowing past my helmet. All of this is why, in August of 2013, I pack some clothes into saddlebags, get onto my Triumph in Chicago, and head west. I need some peace and quiet to think. GUNATILLAKE: How about you? Are you going through anything right now which makes you want some peace and quiet to be still and reflect? If you do, then acknowledge that wish and take the next few moments to set the intention to gift yourself that time. SAGAL: I get a late start on the first day. I strap my bags to the seat behind me, put on my boots, helmet, and riding jacket, throw my leg over the bike, start the engine, and head off down the alley to the street. I feel protected, covered in leather, rip stop nylon, and a puncture proof casing for my head, but at the same time, of course, I’m extraordinarily vulnerable. This is how I’m going to travel for the next two weeks: excepting stops to sleep and eat, I’ll spend every moment directly beneath the open sky. To make up for my late start I hop onto the freeway to log some miles before dark. I quickly learn why I shouldn’t do this trip on freeways. On a motorcycle, you have none of the standard distractions from freeway monotony available in a car: no radio, no audiobooks, no phone calls, not even an open bag of snacks to dip into. At the same time, the riding itself is boring to the point of danger. You put the bike in the highest gear, you twist back the throttle, and spend hours with nothing to do but try to avoid hitting a piece of road debris or getting too close to the windy maelstrom every trailer truck creates in its wake. It seems unbelievable that being in constant danger of instant death can be dull, but it’s true. After that wearying first day, I am determined to make the rest of the trip on secondary roads. Riding a motorcycle requires your entire mind and body. Your right hand controls the throttle and front brake. The fingers of your left hand pull on a lever that engages the clutch. Your right foot presses on the rear brake, and the left foot operates the gear shift, pressing down or pulling up, by slipping the toe of your boot under the metal lever. Meanwhile, you lean into turns, shift your weight backward slightly when you brake, lower yourself behind the windshield when you speed up. For a practiced rider, all of these actions are unconscious but still demand your focused attention. But not all of it. Motorcycling is inherently dangerous, of course, and not just because something that might be an annoyance in a car is potentially fatal on a motorcycle. It’s also because even if you’re as careful as possible, whatever the opposite of reckless is – reckful? – you’re also vulnerable to other people’s mistakes. So we motorcyclists practice a discipline often called “total awareness.” You scan the road surface ahead, looking for debris or potholes, then the cross streets, checking for cars about to pull in front of you. If there’s a car in the lane beside you, you anticipate it suddenly switching lanes right into yours. You play out scenarios, first the disaster, then the complicated combination of twists, squeezes, and leans that will allow you, with luck, to avoid it. This is an extraordinary contrast to my daily life. Like most people, I’m rarely in any physical danger, or even exposed to the elements. I can then indulge, like so many of us do, in the luxury of obliviousness. I don’t notice what’s around me, because it can’t hurt me. I don’t think about the next corner because whatever’s around it will probably be the same as what’s on this side. So I am free to focus on… nothing. Distractions. Trivia. Why not? Nothing’s going to happen to me if I do. On the straight roads of the Great Plains west of Chicago, I’m alone more often than I’m dealing with traffic, and intersections are few and far between. So I monitor the road, upshift and downshift as needed, and I’m able, finally, to take in the world. You don’t know how isolated you are in a car until you ride the same road without the steel and glass cocoon. I see a thousand things along the roadside I never would have noticed – the varying heights of the corn fields on different farms, the peeling paint on the billboards in far too remote a location to be worth anyone covering up their past, and maybe last, paying advertiser. The lines of trees in the distance that I eventually figure out mark streams and canals. The businesses and homes and occasional weird interruptions of the common visual fabric – a fence festooned with bras, a water tower painted like a hot air balloon. It’s on a trip to a place a thousand miles away that, for the first time in years, I start to notice exactly where I am – even as, with each moment of awareness, I speed away to another square of pavement. I spend the night in Pierre, South Dakota, and then roll west, and I find myself in fields of sunflowers, spreading to the horizon on both sides. I pull over, remove my helmet, and walk out a few hundred yards into the rows of flowers. I stand there for a long while, looking in the same direction the flowers are looking, towards the morning sun. Bees buzz. Every now and then a car passes, and I bet the drivers are too distracted by whatever they’ve chosen to distract themselves with to notice the odd flower standing out in the middle of all the others. GUNATILLAKE: Imagine being there with Peter, alongside him. As you do, what details can you notice? What color are the flowers? Can you even catch their scent? Take three deep, full breaths and settle back into the scenery. SAGAL: Sturgis itself is kind of bust, at least for me. A hundred thousand people who’ve chosen to rebel by dressing, drinking, and partying exactly alike. Even with all the lights shining down, there’s nothing to see, and even with all the amusements on offer – mostly involving liquor and scantily clad women – there’s nothing to hold my attention. After one day, I roll on to take in something more interesting, meaning, nothing at all. The hills rise beyond Sturgis, and now I’m doing a different kind of riding. Where once I was constantly monitoring the road and my place on it, now the pavement becomes more active, so I do too. It rises and turns to the left, so I brake, downshift and position myself on the right side of the road. Then I lean into a smooth curve and exit the turn on the correct trajectory, smoothly accelerating which straightens the bike out, while I immediately plan for the next turn. With a few exceptions, there is nothing in modern life that requires absolutely all of our attention. Farmers sit in tractor cabs listening to the radio while the GPS systems make sure they plow in exact straight lines. Even airline pilots spend most of the flight amusing themselves while a computer flies the plane. Eventually, I get to the Rockies. I ascend up the Lolo Pass west of Missoula, Montana, get to the peak at about 4 pm, and then start descending Route 12 into Idaho, following the path of Lewis and Clark, who had worked their way west on the Crooked Fork river, in a ravine below this highway. For a city dweller, it’s a bit disorienting to look at a line of trees next to the road and realize that behind those trees are more trees, and more trees, that they are not the exception to the rule of this landscape. I am. There is nothing but forest between me and Idaho, 50 miles or so ahead, and I’m on a twisty mountain road with sunset just a few hours away. I don’t want to get caught trying to navigate the twists and turns only by headlight, so I need to make good time in order to find a place to sleep before dark. The danger is real, especially as it seems nobody else is dumb enough to attempt the descent this close to dark. If I crash, it might be hours before somebody comes along to find me. If I go over the side of the road, and into the ravine next to it, it might be days, or longer. After all, nobody has any idea where I am. And yet, with all the necessity of paying perfect attention to what I’m doing, or maybe because of that, my thoughts still flow, in a more coherent way than they have in a while. My mind is also able to roam backwards and forwards over my life, past, present and future. I think of my kids and what will happen to them. I remember a hundred moments from our lives together, a life which either has profoundly changed or perhaps even ended. I think of being alone in this moment – gloriously, completely alone, my mind protected by a full-face helmet, enclosing myself with myself – and how long that solitude will last, and how long I might want it to. Without a phone, without radio, without music, without food or drink, without anything but myself and this machine, I’m more alive, more aware than I‘ve been in years, or decades. Psychologists say that trauma imprints most vividly on our memory, and I imagine that has to do with the fact that potential threats trigger our survival instincts – our awareness heightens as we try to fend off or avoid whatever might harm us. So maybe this rolling mindfulness I’m experiencing, my thoughts rolling free inside of my helmet like a marble, is merely a related epiphenomenon – by riding a motorcycle, and subjecting myself to constant danger as long as I’m moving, I trick my brain into a constant state of threat-response, a heightened awareness, fueled by adrenaline, but one that doesn’t trigger a fearful panic response, as long as I keep the rubber side down, anyway. So as I navigate this beautiful road on an August evening, my mind and body working together without conscious thought, my mind roams to and fro in interior journeys that sometimes stray far from my physical one. This is my garden, my zen temple, my still, quiet room. And I'm averaging 50 miles an hour, downhill, on a mountain road with a cliff on one side and a ravine on the other. I cross into Idaho around 6 pm, and just as I start to think I might need to turn my bright headlights on, I find a riverside motel, with one room left for the evening and a diner, which specializes in pie. I park the bike, shed the helmet, gloves, and jacket, and take my notebook to dinner, so I can write down all that I've experienced while I eat. As it turns out, after a day of silence and constant motion, I have a lot to say. GUNATILLAKE: I really love the image that Peter draws out, of him hurtling down and around mountain roads, totally present to that experience but at the same time his thoughts rolling just as free. So I think it might be fun to do something similar. So if you’re up for that, begin by relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your face, breathing, smiling. Listening to this podcast, engaging with this short meditation practice is in its own way a little act of kindness to yourself. So why not appreciate that? Eyes open or eyes closed, whichever feels most appropriate and most safe, notice your posture. It might be sitting down like Peter, or it might be in a different position. However it is, notice it. Inhabit it, if that makes sense. And let’s be like Peter. He had his hands on the handlebars, connected to his bike. Where are your hands and what are they connected to? Drop your awareness, your attention into whatever sensations of touch and connection that exist in your hands right now. Whatever they’re in contact with, know it. Rest with those sensations. Now include your feet. Sitting back, Peter had his on the footpegs of his bike. While still sensitive to your hands contacting whatever they’re contacting, also include your feet. Bringing the contact of your feet on the ground into your awareness. Knowing that contact, just as it is. Your awareness, your attention resting and balanced with these four points, your hands, your feet. Can you feel all these four points at the same time? Make them the foundation of your awareness, your place of rest. If it helps, you can imagine Peter riding on his Triumph, doing the same. Even ride along side him if you like. Always resting in your hands and feet. On your handlebars and footpegs, whatever they may be for you. You may not have the wind rushing through your hair like Peter did, but what do you have? Notice the temperature of the air on your face. All the while keeping in touch with your hands and feet. Keeping in touch with your foundation. Now, if you’ve drifted away, reconnect with your feet and your hands. Establish that foundation, stable and connected. And let your mind roam free. Let your thoughts roll around. Watching the thoughts and ideas dance on the screen of your mind. All the while stable and connected to your body, through your hands and your feet. And to finish, see yourself in a bigger frame. Peter was just one little human moving through a landscape of endless trees and trees and trees. That view gave him perspective and space from his personal drama, which otherwise might have felt so constricting and overwhelming. So zoom out and imagine yourself, see yourself where you are. Just one human in a landscape full of so much stuff that is not your drama, not your storyline. If there’s peace here, enjoy it. And as Peter ended his day by writing up his experiences, why not do the same? Take a moment to review how that practice was for you, how the story made you feel. And if there’s any pie around, all the better.
From the closing meditation
Peter Sagal
PETER SAGAL: And yet, with all the necessity of paying perfect attention to what I’m doing, or maybe because of that, my thoughts still flow, in a more coherent way than they have in a while. My mind is also able to roam backwards and forwards over my life, past, present, and future. I think of my kids and what will happen to them. I remember a hundred moments from our lives together, a life which either has profoundly changed or perhaps even ended. I think of being alone in this moment – gloriously, completely, alone, my mind protected by a full-face helmet, enclosing myself with myself – and how long that solitude will last, and how long I might want it to. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Have you ever been on a motorbike? Even if you've not, it’s such a romantic notion. The freedom, the space, being so connected to both machine and nature at the same time. Peter Sagal is a long-time biker and host of NPR’s “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”. Today, he shares a Meditative Story about a trip through the American Midwest which gave him the space that he needed – inside and out – to navigate a difficult time in his life. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you restore yourself at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to come in with brief guidance for a deeper connection to the story and what’s happening in your own experience as you listen. So before Peter begins, we’ll take a moment together. You might be moving while you listen to this, walking, in a car, on a train. If you’re moving, notice how you’re moving. Notice the change in what’s around you. And notice what, if anything, stays the same. If you’re still, maybe lying down or sitting, notice how you’re still. Enjoy that. And notice if there are any parts of your experience which are in movement. Your breathing. The air on your skin. The muscles in your face if you choose to smile. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. SAGAL: It is the summer of 2013. My marriage has recently broken up, and my hopes for an amicable, non-confrontational, and inexpensive split have been dashed like a watermelon falling from a great height. My soon-to-be ex-wife is taking the kids away for a trip, with myself pointedly not invited, and so I have two weeks off from work with nothing to occupy myself, and that in and of itself is a danger. Without anything I need to do, I tend to distract myself in a variety of unhealthy ways. With so much trouble swirling around, I know myself enough to know that I will do anything to avoid thinking about it. I’ll stare at the internet or TV screens or seek any other kind of distraction in order to not give myself a moment to confront what I’m facing. I look around for something to focus on. I see that the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, is happening right in the middle of my break. It’s a legendary event, attended by more than a 100,000 riders every year. Why not one more? There is no quieter place I know than the saddle of a motorcycle. Motorcycles themselves, of course, can be loud, although they’re not supposed to be as loud as the ones who pull up next to you at a stoplight and pierce your glass shell with their insecure roaring. A modern stock motorcycle, though, with its electronically controlled four stroke engine and street legal mufflers – like my 2013 Triumph Bonneville T-100 – sounds almost as polite as a family sedan. Riding it, the exhaust notes are hard to hear over the wind blowing past my helmet. All of this is why, in August of 2013, I pack some clothes into saddlebags, get onto my Triumph in Chicago, and head west. I need some peace and quiet to think. GUNATILLAKE: How about you? Are you going through anything right now which makes you want some peace and quiet to be still and reflect? If you do, then acknowledge that wish and take the next few moments to set the intention to gift yourself that time. SAGAL: I get a late start on the first day. I strap my bags to the seat behind me, put on my boots, helmet, and riding jacket, throw my leg over the bike, start the engine, and head off down the alley to the street. I feel protected, covered in leather, rip stop nylon, and a puncture proof casing for my head, but at the same time, of course, I’m extraordinarily vulnerable. This is how I’m going to travel for the next two weeks: excepting stops to sleep and eat, I’ll spend every moment directly beneath the open sky. To make up for my late start I hop onto the freeway to log some miles before dark. I quickly learn why I shouldn’t do this trip on freeways. On a motorcycle, you have none of the standard distractions from freeway monotony available in a car: no radio, no audiobooks, no phone calls, not even an open bag of snacks to dip into. At the same time, the riding itself is boring to the point of danger. You put the bike in the highest gear, you twist back the throttle, and spend hours with nothing to do but try to avoid hitting a piece of road debris or getting too close to the windy maelstrom every trailer truck creates in its wake. It seems unbelievable that being in constant danger of instant death can be dull, but it’s true. After that wearying first day, I am determined to make the rest of the trip on secondary roads. Riding a motorcycle requires your entire mind and body. Your right hand controls the throttle and front brake. The fingers of your left hand pull on a lever that engages the clutch. Your right foot presses on the rear brake, and the left foot operates the gear shift, pressing down or pulling up, by slipping the toe of your boot under the metal lever. Meanwhile, you lean into turns, shift your weight backward slightly when you brake, lower yourself behind the windshield when you speed up. For a practiced rider, all of these actions are unconscious but still demand your focused attention. But not all of it. Motorcycling is inherently dangerous, of course, and not just because something that might be an annoyance in a car is potentially fatal on a motorcycle. It’s also because even if you’re as careful as possible, whatever the opposite of reckless is – reckful? – you’re also vulnerable to other people’s mistakes. So we motorcyclists practice a discipline often called “total awareness.” You scan the road surface ahead, looking for debris or potholes, then the cross streets, checking for cars about to pull in front of you. If there’s a car in the lane beside you, you anticipate it suddenly switching lanes right into yours. You play out scenarios, first the disaster, then the complicated combination of twists, squeezes, and leans that will allow you, with luck, to avoid it. This is an extraordinary contrast to my daily life. Like most people, I’m rarely in any physical danger, or even exposed to the elements. I can then indulge, like so many of us do, in the luxury of obliviousness. I don’t notice what’s around me, because it can’t hurt me. I don’t think about the next corner because whatever’s around it will probably be the same as what’s on this side. So I am free to focus on… nothing. Distractions. Trivia. Why not? Nothing’s going to happen to me if I do. On the straight roads of the Great Plains west of Chicago, I’m alone more often than I’m dealing with traffic, and intersections are few and far between. So I monitor the road, upshift and downshift as needed, and I’m able, finally, to take in the world. You don’t know how isolated you are in a car until you ride the same road without the steel and glass cocoon. I see a thousand things along the roadside I never would have noticed – the varying heights of the corn fields on different farms, the peeling paint on the billboards in far too remote a location to be worth anyone covering up their past, and maybe last, paying advertiser. The lines of trees in the distance that I eventually figure out mark streams and canals. The businesses and homes and occasional weird interruptions of the common visual fabric – a fence festooned with bras, a water tower painted like a hot air balloon. It’s on a trip to a place a thousand miles away that, for the first time in years, I start to notice exactly where I am – even as, with each moment of awareness, I speed away to another square of pavement. I spend the night in Pierre, South Dakota, and then roll west, and I find myself in fields of sunflowers, spreading to the horizon on both sides. I pull over, remove my helmet, and walk out a few hundred yards into the rows of flowers. I stand there for a long while, looking in the same direction the flowers are looking, towards the morning sun. Bees buzz. Every now and then a car passes, and I bet the drivers are too distracted by whatever they’ve chosen to distract themselves with to notice the odd flower standing out in the middle of all the others. GUNATILLAKE: Imagine being there with Peter, alongside him. As you do, what details can you notice? What color are the flowers? Can you even catch their scent? Take three deep, full breaths and settle back into the scenery. SAGAL: Sturgis itself is kind of bust, at least for me. A hundred thousand people who’ve chosen to rebel by dressing, drinking, and partying exactly alike. Even with all the lights shining down, there’s nothing to see, and even with all the amusements on offer – mostly involving liquor and scantily clad women – there’s nothing to hold my attention. After one day, I roll on to take in something more interesting, meaning, nothing at all. The hills rise beyond Sturgis, and now I’m doing a different kind of riding. Where once I was constantly monitoring the road and my place on it, now the pavement becomes more active, so I do too. It rises and turns to the left, so I brake, downshift and position myself on the right side of the road. Then I lean into a smooth curve and exit the turn on the correct trajectory, smoothly accelerating which straightens the bike out, while I immediately plan for the next turn. With a few exceptions, there is nothing in modern life that requires absolutely all of our attention. Farmers sit in tractor cabs listening to the radio while the GPS systems make sure they plow in exact straight lines. Even airline pilots spend most of the flight amusing themselves while a computer flies the plane. Eventually, I get to the Rockies. I ascend up the Lolo Pass west of Missoula, Montana, get to the peak at about 4 pm, and then start descending Route 12 into Idaho, following the path of Lewis and Clark, who had worked their way west on the Crooked Fork river, in a ravine below this highway. For a city dweller, it’s a bit disorienting to look at a line of trees next to the road and realize that behind those trees are more trees, and more trees, that they are not the exception to the rule of this landscape. I am. There is nothing but forest between me and Idaho, 50 miles or so ahead, and I’m on a twisty mountain road with sunset just a few hours away. I don’t want to get caught trying to navigate the twists and turns only by headlight, so I need to make good time in order to find a place to sleep before dark. The danger is real, especially as it seems nobody else is dumb enough to attempt the descent this close to dark. If I crash, it might be hours before somebody comes along to find me. If I go over the side of the road, and into the ravine next to it, it might be days, or longer. After all, nobody has any idea where I am. And yet, with all the necessity of paying perfect attention to what I’m doing, or maybe because of that, my thoughts still flow, in a more coherent way than they have in a while. My mind is also able to roam backwards and forwards over my life, past, present and future. I think of my kids and what will happen to them. I remember a hundred moments from our lives together, a life which either has profoundly changed or perhaps even ended. I think of being alone in this moment – gloriously, completely alone, my mind protected by a full-face helmet, enclosing myself with myself – and how long that solitude will last, and how long I might want it to. Without a phone, without radio, without music, without food or drink, without anything but myself and this machine, I’m more alive, more aware than I‘ve been in years, or decades. Psychologists say that trauma imprints most vividly on our memory, and I imagine that has to do with the fact that potential threats trigger our survival instincts – our awareness heightens as we try to fend off or avoid whatever might harm us. So maybe this rolling mindfulness I’m experiencing, my thoughts rolling free inside of my helmet like a marble, is merely a related epiphenomenon – by riding a motorcycle, and subjecting myself to constant danger as long as I’m moving, I trick my brain into a constant state of threat-response, a heightened awareness, fueled by adrenaline, but one that doesn’t trigger a fearful panic response, as long as I keep the rubber side down, anyway. So as I navigate this beautiful road on an August evening, my mind and body working together without conscious thought, my mind roams to and fro in interior journeys that sometimes stray far from my physical one. This is my garden, my zen temple, my still, quiet room. And I'm averaging 50 miles an hour, downhill, on a mountain road with a cliff on one side and a ravine on the other. I cross into Idaho around 6 pm, and just as I start to think I might need to turn my bright headlights on, I find a riverside motel, with one room left for the evening and a diner, which specializes in pie. I park the bike, shed the helmet, gloves, and jacket, and take my notebook to dinner, so I can write down all that I've experienced while I eat. As it turns out, after a day of silence and constant motion, I have a lot to say. GUNATILLAKE: I really love the image that Peter draws out, of him hurtling down and around mountain roads, totally present to that experience but at the same time his thoughts rolling just as free. So I think it might be fun to do something similar. So if you’re up for that, begin by relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your face, breathing, smiling. Listening to this podcast, engaging with this short meditation practice is in its own way a little act of kindness to yourself. So why not appreciate that? Eyes open or eyes closed, whichever feels most appropriate and most safe, notice your posture. It might be sitting down like Peter, or it might be in a different position. However it is, notice it. Inhabit it, if that makes sense. And let’s be like Peter. He had his hands on the handlebars, connected to his bike. Where are your hands and what are they connected to? Drop your awareness, your attention into whatever sensations of touch and connection that exist in your hands right now. Whatever they’re in contact with, know it. Rest with those sensations. Now include your feet. Sitting back, Peter had his on the footpegs of his bike. While still sensitive to your hands contacting whatever they’re contacting, also include your feet. Bringing the contact of your feet on the ground into your awareness. Knowing that contact, just as it is. Your awareness, your attention resting and balanced with these four points, your hands, your feet. Can you feel all these four points at the same time? Make them the foundation of your awareness, your place of rest. If it helps, you can imagine Peter riding on his Triumph, doing the same. Even ride along side him if you like. Always resting in your hands and feet. On your handlebars and footpegs, whatever they may be for you. You may not have the wind rushing through your hair like Peter did, but what do you have? Notice the temperature of the air on your face. All the while keeping in touch with your hands and feet. Keeping in touch with your foundation. Now, if you’ve drifted away, reconnect with your feet and your hands. Establish that foundation, stable and connected. And let your mind roam free. Let your thoughts roll around. Watching the thoughts and ideas dance on the screen of your mind. All the while stable and connected to your body, through your hands and your feet. And to finish, see yourself in a bigger frame. Peter was just one little human moving through a landscape of endless trees and trees and trees. That view gave him perspective and space from his personal drama, which otherwise might have felt so constricting and overwhelming. So zoom out and imagine yourself, see yourself where you are. Just one human in a landscape full of so much stuff that is not your drama, not your storyline. If there’s peace here, enjoy it. And as Peter ended his day by writing up his experiences, why not do the same? Take a moment to review how that practice was for you, how the story made you feel. And if there’s any pie around, all the better.
Hitting the open road to find my way home
About Peter Sagal
PRESENCE
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FOCUS
PETER'S MEDITATIVE STORY
When NPR host Peter Sagal found himself with two free weeks – and in need of a healthy distraction – he decided to jump on his bike for a long solo trip out west. Though he had a destination in mind, what he found was not a way out, but a way into himself.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
When NPR host Peter Sagal found himself with two free weeks – and in need of a healthy distraction – he decided to jump on his bike for a long solo trip out west. Though he had a destination in mind, what he found was not a way out, but a way into himself.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Episode Transcript
Peter Sagal is a writer and host of the NPR game show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and the PBS special "Constitution USA with Peter Sagal." He's also the author of The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them).
Episode Transcript
PETER SAGAL
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Hitting the open road to find my way home
PETER'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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Listen
Invite your awareness to just rest with sensations of contact. Relaxed. Open. Permissive. As if being aware of these sensations, knowing them, soaking into them, is the most important thing you could be doing right now. There may not seem to be much to it. But this mindfulness, this being present and alive to what is happening right now, is the atom from which the whole universe of meditation, of contemplative practice is built.
"Whether you’re just about to host a show on live TV, or chase your child in a game of tag, you need to be present – because whether it’s an audience of millions or just of one, they’ll know if you’re not really there. So right now in this moment, what can you do to really be here?"
From the closing meditation
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INSPIRATION
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Josh Radnor
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Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor takes us back to his very first time on stage — and introduces us to someone who gave him the push he needed to be true to himself. Please note that this episode includes language about self harm.
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Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor takes us back to his very first time on stage — and introduces us to someone who gave him the push he needed to be true to himself. Please note that this episode includes language about self harm.
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Josh Radnor is an actor, filmmaker, and musician. He has starred in the Emmy Award-winning "How I Met Your Mother," and the Tony Award nominated play "Disgraced." He made his writing and directorial debut with "Happythankyoumoreplease," which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
About Josh Radnor
JOSH RADNOR
INSPIRATION
JOSH RADNOR: Of the three guidance counselors at the high school, Mrs. Oreski was the one to get. She had a special feel for the teenage mind – the insecurity, the false bravado, the wanting to simultaneously stand out and disappear. One sensed her allegiance to be wholly with the students and not the administration. Everything she said seemed to be delivered with a wink, a reassuring squeeze of the arm or pat on the back. Her whole persona seemed to whisper, “It’s going to be okay.” Which, really, might be all anyone would ever need to say to a teenager. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Sometimes all we need are a few comforting words. Spoken at the right time, they can change the course of our life. I wonder if anything like that has happened to you? It certainly has for me. Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor is perhaps best known for his lead role in the Emmy award-winning show “How I Met Your Mother”. And in this week’s episode he shares a story from a vulnerable time in his life when what he most needed was a nudge – a truth pointed out that was so close to him he couldn’t quite see it. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you find a moment of calm at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to share an observation. My hope is that these prompts will help you experience Josh’s story more deeply. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. RADNOR: This is what I remember: The slashes of lipstick blasted across her front teeth like graffiti. Hair so fiery red it almost matched her lipstick, parted in the middle and feathered to the sides. What sitting in her office felt like, that little nook tucked away from the clang of gossip and lockers. Her reassurance with each visit that whatever we discussed would never leave that room. And how I believed her. And the last thing she taught me, when she reappeared at the school, unsteady and pale, for one final week after a long, curious absence: When folding paper with two folds, for business envelopes, leave one edge slightly long so the reader can grab the lip of the longer end to shake the letter open. To this day, on the increasingly rare occasions I fold an actual letter, it’s impossible for me not to think about this. And her. Bexley, Ohio is a small, well-to-do neighborhood in Columbus, just east of downtown. The blocks are square, the streets are tree-lined, and the Fourth of July parade has to be seen to be believed. It’s a safe and warm place to grow up, but there’s also a faint whiff of self-satisfaction about the town, a largely unspoken belief that its residents are the luckiest people in the world, and how sad for those people who have to live elsewhere in other sad, non-Bexley towns. That said – and this complicates one’s recollections – it also is really special, the kind of place you bring friends to years later and they look around and say, “You actually grew up here?” There are fireflies in the summer and gorgeous snowfalls in the winter. Almost all of my friends’ parents are still married. Rubino’s, the best pizza place on the entire planet, is there. There are three unbelievably great ice cream shops all within walking distance of each other. For all its small town sweetness, the public high school was a fiercely socially competitive place, stratified in all the clichéd suburban ways. The transition to Bexley my freshman year from the womb-like Jewish day school where I’d spent the previous nine years was harrowing. Gone were the mandatory yarmulke and tzitzit. In their place came an intense longing to dress right and say the right things and hang out with the right people. Simply put: I wanted to be cool. And with my oversized ears, more-than-occasionally pimply chin, and can’t-do-much-with-it Jewish head of hair, I was terrified I wasn’t. My first year of high school I was never able to shake some vague terror that a reputation-destroying event might be just around the next corner. GUNATILLAKE: Can you see Josh here? Walking the corridors, sitting in class, wrapped up in his desire to be cool. What about you? Is there a way you want to be seen by the world? Or are you ok with how things are? RADNOR: One afternoon during my sophomore year, my friend Debbie Shell tells me she wants to audition for the chorus of “Oklahoma”, the Spring musical, but she’s nervous and wonders if I’ll come to the auditions in the auditorium after school and sit with her. I say, “Yeah, sure, why not?” Sitting in the theater next to Debbie, I watch student after student sing along to plunked out notes on the piano and read short sections from the script, and something fires off in me: These guys aren’t that great at this and I think I can do this better than them. I’m slightly embarrassed of this thought; it feels arrogant and uncharitable. But it also feels true. And then, out of nowhere, whoever’s running the auditions points at me and asks if I’m going to audition. As if an invisible hand grabs ahold of my shirt collar and pulls me forward, I find myself hopping up onto the stage and singing scales along with the music director. And then I read a bit from the script. I’m called back for the next day’s second round of auditions where we read and sing some more. The final cast list is posted the following day: WILL PARKER – Josh Radnor “Oklahoma” is fun but I’m terribly green as a performer. I love the experience, but the stage doesn’t truly sink its hooks into me until the following year when I’m cast as the Emcee in “Cabaret.” For about a month before auditions, until opening night, I obsess over the Broadway original cast album of “Cabaret”, the CD of which I check out and re-check out of the Bexley Public Library for months. Whenever my parents and sisters are gone and I have the house to myself, I convert the living room, which houses the family stereo, into a makeshift stage, singing loudly along to Joel Grey’s mysterious, nasal-voiced Emcee, and trying out my new moves. When my dancing and singing spin me into the adjacent dining room, I catch sight of myself in the mirrored credenza which holds a menorah, Shabbos candle holders, an ornate Kiddush cup, a Seder plate, and other assorted Judaica. And then it hits me: a sixteen-year-old discovering, for the first time, his talent for performance. Who knew I could be so bold and free and expressive? Who knew I could sing on pitch and move with some grace and showbiz pizzazz with a cane and a smirk? Who knew I could do such a fantastic Joel Grey impersonation? It feels so natural to me, less like acquiring a new skill than remembering one. That my whole performance is basically an outright rip-off of Joel Grey’s take on the character – minus the sexual ambiguity which, suburban teen that I am, I know nothing of – doesn’t really matter. Somehow I manage to bring a hint of professional polish to that high school auditorium. But it’s bigger than that. Tuxedo-clad, face covered in white make-up, hair slickly parted in the middle, jumping around a creaky stage imitating Joel Grey shifts something for me. GUNATILLAKE: If you can picture it, there’s a relaxation, a freedom in Josh's performance. In your body right now where can you most notice tension? Your shoulders, your face, your hands? Notice it, really feel it, feel into it. And let go. Fall into a freedom, a looseness in you. RADNOR: At one of the performances my parents are seated front row center. There’s a bit where I walk across a thin wooden plank over the orchestra pit towards the audience and that night I sit in an empty seat next to my parents. I kind of just stare at them, slightly menacingly, and it gets a big laugh as a good percentage of the audience know who these people are and why I’ve singled them out. I don’t know why that moment has stayed with me. My parents are delighted, of course, but maybe it has something to do with a subtle shift in power. I suddenly hold the cards and control the moment. I’m the Emcee after all. Everyone is a guest at my party, including my parents. Playing the part gives me a different sense of agency, a newfound confidence. I feel some internal light click on. I’m suddenly more awake. After the show, I see my guidance counselor Mrs. Oreski pushing her way through a swarm of well-wishers and beaming parents. When she reaches me she grabs my arm and leans into my ear. No congratulations or compliments are offered. Only this: “You’re to come see me first thing Monday morning before homeroom.” Her tone is stern and insistent. I know she means business. And then she walks away. Of the three guidance counselors at the high school, Mrs. Oreski was the one to get. She had a special feel for the teenage mind – the insecurity, the false bravado, the wanting to simultaneously stand out and disappear. One sensed her allegiance to be wholly with the students and not the administration. Everything she said seemed to be delivered with a wink, a reassuring squeeze of the arm, or pat on the back. Her whole persona seemed to whisper “It’s going to be okay.” Which, really, might be all anyone would ever need to say to a teenager. So there I am in her office the following Monday before homeroom, as instructed. No small talk, no questions. Simply an order: “You are never to stop acting. Even if you become a lawyer and do community theater, you must keep acting.” And then she looks at me with a steeliness I’m unaccustomed to and says: “Promise me.” I promise. How had she known? I had told no one. But it was true: I didn’t want to stop acting, ever. Surely I would have to though. Adulthood as I understood it was pretty much the opposite of an extracurricular activity. It was jobs and suits and bills and mortgages laced with an air of frustration and regret. No sane person – from a good family in Bexley, Ohio, no less – made their living as a stage actor. I hadn’t given much thought to a career at that point, but I guess I kind of half-assumed I’d be a lawyer like my father, not owing to any great interest in or love of the law but stemming more from a kind of professional inertia. This is what a kid from my background, in possession of my particular skill set grows up to be. Maybe Mrs. Oreski assumed that too, and truly felt the community theater scene would be much diminished absent my contributions. But I’ve also wondered if she was trying to say something without quite saying it, speaking in a kind of suburban guidance counselor code. Yes, I wanted to sing and act, but that urge was competing with a desire no less strong to simply fit in. Wanting to be an actor was an ambition so culturally at odds with what my peers were up to, with what I thought my community and family expected of me. All I knew – and this was something I simply couldn’t deny – was that I’d never felt so alive as when I stepped out onto that stage. I called it magic, this sense Mrs. Oreski had. But I now understand that she had simply seen me. She had seen something ignite in me, that I’d stepped into a different, upgraded, more fully expressed version of myself, and she was simply doing her job: reflecting back to me what she had seen. When we’re too young to trust ourselves we may need to borrow other people’s faith in us until we develop some of our own. We need another set of eyes to see ourselves clearly, because our own vision is fractured or busted or not yet fully formed. Mrs. Oreski was the set of eyes I needed in that moment. She called it out and named it. Before I could even admit it fully to myself – or even knew what this thing was – she gave voice to it. By late winter of my senior year – less than a year after my Monday morning visit to her office – Mrs. Oreski died by taking her own life. Sitting at her memorial, sandwiched between my parents, I felt safe enough to cry. Loss had left my life largely untouched until that moment; Mrs. Oreski’s death upended some unspoken belief I had about “the way things should go” and taught me some quick and necessary lessons: That madness, depression, and absurdity are facts and features of life. That not everything will get fixed in the end. And that tragedy will not always be confined to newspapers or the local news telecasts or the unlucky family down the block. I recently found a picture of her online from her early teaching days in 1971. The accompanying article was about changing dress codes at the school. They’re all wearing slacks in the photo; the fight to wear them was – according to the article – hard-won. She looks terrific, posed in front of a blackboard with four students from a high school in southwestern Pennsylvania, all awkwardly holding books, papers, and binders. I kept staring at Mrs. Oreski in the picture: Her half-grin, the wide lapels on her entirely awesome period-appropriate outfit, her hair pulled back revealing a face unlined with worry, no awareness of the trials ahead or that her life would be cut short by her own hand. But also no idea of the many fragile teenagers she would go on to help and inspire. An additional sting to the loss: all the many teenagers over the years who never got to receive that help and inspiration. But it’s not her death which dominates my memory. It’s the image of us that morning in her office – 28 years ago – when she told an insecure sixteen-year-old that he could be excellent at something. She gave me permission to do an impossible thing. She believed in me before I believed in myself. I’ve often wondered if she knew, somehow, that she’d be going away. And that before she did, she made sure to whisper sacred and necessary words into my oversized teenaged ears: “You are never to stop acting.” GUNATILLAKE: I love the part of Josh’s story where Mrs Oreski gives him the advice which goes on and inspires the direction of his life. And even more, I love the way he describes it: Mrs. Oreski acting as another set of eyes, knowing what Josh needs in that moment – even if he doesn’t – and naming it. In certain meditation traditions, there’s a special name for this: pointing-out instructions, advice and teachings which nudge you to see the thing that’s right there in front of your face but for various reasons you’re not seeing. So to honor Mrs. Oreski – and of course, Josh – I thought we’d have a little pointing out instructions ourselves. However your body is, wherever it is, become aware of the sensations of where your body touches the earth. If you’re standing or walking, become aware of your feet. If sitting, you can also include your seat. If you’re lying down just let your awareness rest in the most obvious sensations of your body contacting the surface beneath you. This is mindfulness. This is knowing what is happening while it is happening. Invite your awareness to just rest with these sensations of contact. Relaxed. Open. Permissive. As if being aware of these sensations, knowing them, soaking into them, is the most important thing you could be doing right now. There may not seem to be much to it. But this mindfulness, this being present and alive to what is happening right now, is the atom from which the whole universe of meditation, of contemplative practice is built. Letting the breath be steady. Letting the body be steady. Letting more and more of your sensations of contacting the earth fill up your awareness. Simple mindfulness. Total mindfulness. Stay here. Stay here, aware of the touch of the Earth. What knows? What is aware? These questions are a way to move the object of your awareness to the background and instead, notice the awareness itself. What is it like? What is it? What knows? Because at its heart, the invitation of meditation is to never stop exploring. You are never to stop exploring. Maybe Josh’s fond story of Mrs. Oreski reminded you of someone in your life, a wise friend, who pointed to something in you which you had been ignoring or putting to one side. If so, bring that person, that moment to mind, and reflect on how grateful you are for what they said to you. And make the intention – if you like – to do the same to someone else in your life. To be Mrs. Oreski to a different Josh. Is there someone you know who can’t quite see how brilliant they are? If so, set the intention, when you next see them, to tell them. That’s all. Who knows – it might just be the thing to send their life into a new direction, just as it did for Josh.
From the closing meditation
Josh Radnor
JOSH RADNOR: Of the three guidance counselors at the high school, Mrs. Oreski was the one to get. She had a special feel for the teenage mind – the insecurity, the false bravado, the wanting to simultaneously stand out and disappear. One sensed her allegiance to be wholly with the students and not the administration. Everything she said seemed to be delivered with a wink, a reassuring squeeze of the arm or pat on the back. Her whole persona seemed to whisper, “It’s going to be okay.” Which, really, might be all anyone would ever need to say to a teenager. ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Sometimes all we need are a few comforting words. Spoken at the right time, they can change the course of our life. I wonder if anything like that has happened to you? It certainly has for me. Actor, filmmaker, and musician Josh Radnor is perhaps best known for his lead role in the Emmy award-winning show “How I Met Your Mother”. And in this week’s episode he shares a story from a vulnerable time in his life when what he most needed was a nudge – a truth pointed out that was so close to him he couldn’t quite see it. In this series, we blend immersive, first-person stories with mindfulness prompts to help you find a moment of calm at any time of the day. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide on this episode of Meditative Story. From time to time, we’ll pause the story ever so briefly for me to share an observation. My hope is that these prompts will help you experience Josh’s story more deeply. The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open. Your mind open. Meeting the world. RADNOR: This is what I remember: The slashes of lipstick blasted across her front teeth like graffiti. Hair so fiery red it almost matched her lipstick, parted in the middle and feathered to the sides. What sitting in her office felt like, that little nook tucked away from the clang of gossip and lockers. Her reassurance with each visit that whatever we discussed would never leave that room. And how I believed her. And the last thing she taught me, when she reappeared at the school, unsteady and pale, for one final week after a long, curious absence: When folding paper with two folds, for business envelopes, leave one edge slightly long so the reader can grab the lip of the longer end to shake the letter open. To this day, on the increasingly rare occasions I fold an actual letter, it’s impossible for me not to think about this. And her. Bexley, Ohio is a small, well-to-do neighborhood in Columbus, just east of downtown. The blocks are square, the streets are tree-lined, and the Fourth of July parade has to be seen to be believed. It’s a safe and warm place to grow up, but there’s also a faint whiff of self-satisfaction about the town, a largely unspoken belief that its residents are the luckiest people in the world, and how sad for those people who have to live elsewhere in other sad, non-Bexley towns. That said – and this complicates one’s recollections – it also is really special, the kind of place you bring friends to years later and they look around and say, “You actually grew up here?” There are fireflies in the summer and gorgeous snowfalls in the winter. Almost all of my friends’ parents are still married. Rubino’s, the best pizza place on the entire planet, is there. There are three unbelievably great ice cream shops all within walking distance of each other. For all its small town sweetness, the public high school was a fiercely socially competitive place, stratified in all the clichéd suburban ways. The transition to Bexley my freshman year from the womb-like Jewish day school where I’d spent the previous nine years was harrowing. Gone were the mandatory yarmulke and tzitzit. In their place came an intense longing to dress right and say the right things and hang out with the right people. Simply put: I wanted to be cool. And with my oversized ears, more-than-occasionally pimply chin, and can’t-do-much-with-it Jewish head of hair, I was terrified I wasn’t. My first year of high school I was never able to shake some vague terror that a reputation-destroying event might be just around the next corner. GUNATILLAKE: Can you see Josh here? Walking the corridors, sitting in class, wrapped up in his desire to be cool. What about you? Is there a way you want to be seen by the world? Or are you ok with how things are? RADNOR: One afternoon during my sophomore year, my friend Debbie Shell tells me she wants to audition for the chorus of “Oklahoma”, the Spring musical, but she’s nervous and wonders if I’ll come to the auditions in the auditorium after school and sit with her. I say, “Yeah, sure, why not?” Sitting in the theater next to Debbie, I watch student after student sing along to plunked out notes on the piano and read short sections from the script, and something fires off in me: These guys aren’t that great at this and I think I can do this better than them. I’m slightly embarrassed of this thought; it feels arrogant and uncharitable. But it also feels true. And then, out of nowhere, whoever’s running the auditions points at me and asks if I’m going to audition. As if an invisible hand grabs ahold of my shirt collar and pulls me forward, I find myself hopping up onto the stage and singing scales along with the music director. And then I read a bit from the script. I’m called back for the next day’s second round of auditions where we read and sing some more. The final cast list is posted the following day: WILL PARKER – Josh Radnor “Oklahoma” is fun but I’m terribly green as a performer. I love the experience, but the stage doesn’t truly sink its hooks into me until the following year when I’m cast as the Emcee in “Cabaret.” For about a month before auditions, until opening night, I obsess over the Broadway original cast album of “Cabaret”, the CD of which I check out and re-check out of the Bexley Public Library for months. Whenever my parents and sisters are gone and I have the house to myself, I convert the living room, which houses the family stereo, into a makeshift stage, singing loudly along to Joel Grey’s mysterious, nasal-voiced Emcee, and trying out my new moves. When my dancing and singing spin me into the adjacent dining room, I catch sight of myself in the mirrored credenza which holds a menorah, Shabbos candle holders, an ornate Kiddush cup, a Seder plate, and other assorted Judaica. And then it hits me: a sixteen-year-old discovering, for the first time, his talent for performance. Who knew I could be so bold and free and expressive? Who knew I could sing on pitch and move with some grace and showbiz pizzazz with a cane and a smirk? Who knew I could do such a fantastic Joel Grey impersonation? It feels so natural to me, less like acquiring a new skill than remembering one. That my whole performance is basically an outright rip-off of Joel Grey’s take on the character – minus the sexual ambiguity which, suburban teen that I am, I know nothing of – doesn’t really matter. Somehow I manage to bring a hint of professional polish to that high school auditorium. But it’s bigger than that. Tuxedo-clad, face covered in white make-up, hair slickly parted in the middle, jumping around a creaky stage imitating Joel Grey shifts something for me. GUNATILLAKE: If you can picture it, there’s a relaxation, a freedom in Josh's performance. In your body right now where can you most notice tension? Your shoulders, your face, your hands? Notice it, really feel it, feel into it. And let go. Fall into a freedom, a looseness in you. RADNOR: At one of the performances my parents are seated front row center. There’s a bit where I walk across a thin wooden plank over the orchestra pit towards the audience and that night I sit in an empty seat next to my parents. I kind of just stare at them, slightly menacingly, and it gets a big laugh as a good percentage of the audience know who these people are and why I’ve singled them out. I don’t know why that moment has stayed with me. My parents are delighted, of course, but maybe it has something to do with a subtle shift in power. I suddenly hold the cards and control the moment. I’m the Emcee after all. Everyone is a guest at my party, including my parents. Playing the part gives me a different sense of agency, a newfound confidence. I feel some internal light click on. I’m suddenly more awake. After the show, I see my guidance counselor Mrs. Oreski pushing her way through a swarm of well-wishers and beaming parents. When she reaches me she grabs my arm and leans into my ear. No congratulations or compliments are offered. Only this: “You’re to come see me first thing Monday morning before homeroom.” Her tone is stern and insistent. I know she means business. And then she walks away. Of the three guidance counselors at the high school, Mrs. Oreski was the one to get. She had a special feel for the teenage mind – the insecurity, the false bravado, the wanting to simultaneously stand out and disappear. One sensed her allegiance to be wholly with the students and not the administration. Everything she said seemed to be delivered with a wink, a reassuring squeeze of the arm, or pat on the back. Her whole persona seemed to whisper “It’s going to be okay.” Which, really, might be all anyone would ever need to say to a teenager. So there I am in her office the following Monday before homeroom, as instructed. No small talk, no questions. Simply an order: “You are never to stop acting. Even if you become a lawyer and do community theater, you must keep acting.” And then she looks at me with a steeliness I’m unaccustomed to and says: “Promise me.” I promise. How had she known? I had told no one. But it was true: I didn’t want to stop acting, ever. Surely I would have to though. Adulthood as I understood it was pretty much the opposite of an extracurricular activity. It was jobs and suits and bills and mortgages laced with an air of frustration and regret. No sane person – from a good family in Bexley, Ohio, no less – made their living as a stage actor. I hadn’t given much thought to a career at that point, but I guess I kind of half-assumed I’d be a lawyer like my father, not owing to any great interest in or love of the law but stemming more from a kind of professional inertia. This is what a kid from my background, in possession of my particular skill set grows up to be. Maybe Mrs. Oreski assumed that too, and truly felt the community theater scene would be much diminished absent my contributions. But I’ve also wondered if she was trying to say something without quite saying it, speaking in a kind of suburban guidance counselor code. Yes, I wanted to sing and act, but that urge was competing with a desire no less strong to simply fit in. Wanting to be an actor was an ambition so culturally at odds with what my peers were up to, with what I thought my community and family expected of me. All I knew – and this was something I simply couldn’t deny – was that I’d never felt so alive as when I stepped out onto that stage. I called it magic, this sense Mrs. Oreski had. But I now understand that she had simply seen me. She had seen something ignite in me, that I’d stepped into a different, upgraded, more fully expressed version of myself, and she was simply doing her job: reflecting back to me what she had seen. When we’re too young to trust ourselves we may need to borrow other people’s faith in us until we develop some of our own. We need another set of eyes to see ourselves clearly, because our own vision is fractured or busted or not yet fully formed. Mrs. Oreski was the set of eyes I needed in that moment. She called it out and named it. Before I could even admit it fully to myself – or even knew what this thing was – she gave voice to it. By late winter of my senior year – less than a year after my Monday morning visit to her office – Mrs. Oreski died by taking her own life. Sitting at her memorial, sandwiched between my parents, I felt safe enough to cry. Loss had left my life largely untouched until that moment; Mrs. Oreski’s death upended some unspoken belief I had about “the way things should go” and taught me some quick and necessary lessons: That madness, depression, and absurdity are facts and features of life. That not everything will get fixed in the end. And that tragedy will not always be confined to newspapers or the local news telecasts or the unlucky family down the block. I recently found a picture of her online from her early teaching days in 1971. The accompanying article was about changing dress codes at the school. They’re all wearing slacks in the photo; the fight to wear them was – according to the article – hard-won. She looks terrific, posed in front of a blackboard with four students from a high school in southwestern Pennsylvania, all awkwardly holding books, papers, and binders. I kept staring at Mrs. Oreski in the picture: Her half-grin, the wide lapels on her entirely awesome period-appropriate outfit, her hair pulled back revealing a face unlined with worry, no awareness of the trials ahead or that her life would be cut short by her own hand. But also no idea of the many fragile teenagers she would go on to help and inspire. An additional sting to the loss: all the many teenagers over the years who never got to receive that help and inspiration. But it’s not her death which dominates my memory. It’s the image of us that morning in her office – 28 years ago – when she told an insecure sixteen-year-old that he could be excellent at something. She gave me permission to do an impossible thing. She believed in me before I believed in myself. I’ve often wondered if she knew, somehow, that she’d be going away. And that before she did, she made sure to whisper sacred and necessary words into my oversized teenaged ears: “You are never to stop acting.” GUNATILLAKE: I love the part of Josh’s story where Mrs Oreski gives him the advice which goes on and inspires the direction of his life. And even more, I love the way he describes it: Mrs. Oreski acting as another set of eyes, knowing what Josh needs in that moment – even if he doesn’t – and naming it. In certain meditation traditions, there’s a special name for this: pointing-out instructions, advice and teachings which nudge you to see the thing that’s right there in front of your face but for various reasons you’re not seeing. So to honor Mrs. Oreski – and of course, Josh – I thought we’d have a little pointing out instructions ourselves. However your body is, wherever it is, become aware of the sensations of where your body touches the earth. If you’re standing or walking, become aware of your feet. If sitting, you can also include your seat. If you’re lying down just let your awareness rest in the most obvious sensations of your body contacting the surface beneath you. This is mindfulness. This is knowing what is happening while it is happening. Invite your awareness to just rest with these sensations of contact. Relaxed. Open. Permissive. As if being aware of these sensations, knowing them, soaking into them, is the most important thing you could be doing right now. There may not seem to be much to it. But this mindfulness, this being present and alive to what is happening right now, is the atom from which the whole universe of meditation, of contemplative practice is built. Letting the breath be steady. Letting the body be steady. Letting more and more of your sensations of contacting the earth fill up your awareness. Simple mindfulness. Total mindfulness. Stay here. Stay here, aware of the touch of the Earth. What knows? What is aware? These questions are a way to move the object of your awareness to the background and instead, notice the awareness itself. What is it like? What is it? What knows? Because at its heart, the invitation of meditation is to never stop exploring. You are never to stop exploring. Maybe Josh’s fond story of Mrs. Oreski reminded you of someone in your life, a wise friend, who pointed to something in you which you had been ignoring or putting to one side. If so, bring that person, that moment to mind, and reflect on how grateful you are for what they said to you. And make the intention – if you like – to do the same to someone else in your life. To be Mrs. Oreski to a different Josh. Is there someone you know who can’t quite see how brilliant they are? If so, set the intention, when you next see them, to tell them. That’s all. Who knows – it might just be the thing to send their life into a new direction, just as it did for Josh.
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
About Josh Radnor
Inspiration
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JOSH'S MEDITATIVE STORY
Josh Radnor is an actor, filmmaker, and musician. But that's now. Back when he was an unsure sixteen-year-old growing up in Ohio, just discovering his love of acting, he never believed it could be his life. That is until a guidance counselor asked him to promise to be true to himself.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
Josh Radnor is an actor, filmmaker, and musician. But that's now. Back when he was an unsure sixteen-year-old growing up in Ohio, just discovering his love of acting, he never believed it could be his life. That is until a guidance counselor asked him to promise to be true to himself.
Every Meditative Story ends in a closing meditation from our host, Rohan
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Episode Transcript
Josh Radnor is an actor, filmmaker, and musician. He has starred in the Emmy Award-winning "How I Met Your Mother," and the Tony Award nominated play "Disgraced." He made his writing and directorial debut with "Happythankyoumoreplease," which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
Episode Transcript
Josh Radnor
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
– ROHAN GUNATILLAKE
Finding permission to pursue my own dreams
JOSH'S MEDITATIVE STORY
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PRIVACY POLICY Introduction:
Security:
The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to explain how Wait What Inc. (“we” or “us”) collects, uses, stores, and protects the information of visitors (“you” or “your”) to our website, waitwhat.com. When we use the term “processing” or “processor” this refers to the collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation, alteration, retrieval, use, transmission, dissemination, combination, erasure, or destruction of information. We do not track your browsing activities on our website. You have the option to contact us through our website by providing your name, email address, and a message. If you do so, we may use the information you provide to us to respond to any inquiries from you or to place you on our email newsletter subscriber list. If we do send you any email newsletters, note that each email contains an unsubscribe link, which you can click on if you wish to unsubscribe from our email list. We do not sell your information to third parties. We may disclose your information to companies and individuals who perform business functions on our behalf. Such functions may include hosting the website, analyzing data, and providing other support services. All such parties are required to keep your personal information secure and only process it in accordance with our instructions. We may also disclose your information if required by law. We do not use cookies or other tracking devices when you visit our website. We use MailChimp, a third-party service, to maintain our subscriber list and send out email newsletters. MailChimp uses cookies or other tracking mechanisms to recognize when recipients open emails or click on certain links. This information might then be used to assist us in enhancing your experience on our website and promoting content most relevant to our email subscribers and podcast listeners. You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings on your browser. We retain your information for so long as we have an ongoing legitimate business or legal need to do so. Additionally, you have the ability to unsubscribe from, or opt-out of, our subscriber list for our automated emails at any time, and to disable cookies and other tracking functions through your computer or browser. We strive to maintain adequate technical and organizational security measures to protect your information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We are not liable for unauthorized disclosure of information that occurs through no fault of our own. If we learn of a data breach that is likely to result in a high risk to your rights and freedoms, we will immediately notify you of such data breach and inform you of (a) the nature of the data breach, (b) the point of contact regarding the data breach, (c) the likely consequences of the data breach, and (d) the measures being taken to address the breach and mitigate its possible risks. Although we work to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date, unless we receive an indication otherwise, we can only assume that the information you provide to us is accurate. If you inform us that any of your information processed through our website or email marketing is incorrect, or if we learn that any such information is incorrect, we will work to promptly correct, or if appropriate, erase, such information. If you are located in the European Economic Area, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) with respect to information we collect that, alone or in combination with other information we collect, can be used to identify you (such information being “personal data”): Right to Information Regarding the Processing of Your Personal Data: You have the right to obtain the following information: • confirmation of whether and where we are processing your personal data; • information about the purpose of the processing of your personal data; • information about the categories of personal data being processed; • information about the existence of, and an explanation of the logic involved in, any automated processing of your personal data that has a significant effect on you; • information about the categories of recipients with whom your personal data may be shared; and • Information about the period for which your personal data will be stored or the criteria used to determine that period. This Privacy Policy is intended to provide much of the information listed above. Right to Access to Your Personal Data: You may request a copy of your personal data that we, or our third-party processors, collect and maintain. Similarly, you have the right to, when technically feasible, have your personal data transferred to another entity to determine the purpose and means of processing your personal data. Right to Have Errors Corrected: You have the right to rectification of inaccurate personal data. If you notify us that any of your personal data is inaccurate or incomplete, we have the responsibility to, either directly or through our third-party processors, ensure that such personal data is erased or corrected. Right to Have Personal Data Erased or Processing Restricted: You have the right to have your personal data erased when (i) the personal data is no longer needed for its original purpose and no new lawful purpose exists; (ii) the personal data is being processed based solely on your consent and you withdraw your consent; or (iii) the personal data is being processed unlawfully. Similarly, you have the right to limit our use of your personal data when (i) the personal data is no longer needed for its original purpose, but we still need to maintain the personal data to establish, exercise, or defend legal rights; (ii) the personal data is being processed unlawfully; or (iii) the accuracy of the personal data is contested, but then our use of the personal data is restricted for only so long as it takes to verify the accuracy of the personal data. Right to Object to Processing of Your Personal Data: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data if the basis for that processing is (a) public interest; or (b) our own legitimate interests in doing so. Additionally, you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for the purpose of direct marketing or statistical purposes. Right to Lodge a Complaint with a Supervising Authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint concerning the processing of your personal data with your country’s independent public authority designated to act as its data protection “supervising authority” under the GDPR. Right to Withdraw Consent to the Processing of Your Personal Data: You have the right to refuse to consent to, and to withdraw your consent to, the processing of your personal data. To the extent we rely on your consent to collect and store your information, when you withdraw such consent we must cease collection and retention of such information. Note, however, we do not require your consent to collect or otherwise process your personal information if (a) such information is not personal data or (b) such information is personal data and we have another lawful basis for processing the information (for instance, processing of such information is necessary for the purpose of a legitimate interest of ours that is not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms). Responses to your requests to us regarding your personal data will be provided free of charge (including copies of materials), except that we may charge a reasonable fee for any repetitive requests, manifestly unfounded or excessive requests, or further copies. Similarly, we may refuse to act upon requests that are manifestly unfounded or excessive. We process personal data, whether directly or through third-party processors, as needed for purposes of our legitimate interests, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of our website visitors, podcast listeners, or email subscribers. Our legitimate interests include responding to communications initiated by you, informing you of podcast episodes and other media content that might be of interest to you, and protecting the security of our media property and your personal data. In some instances, we might request your consent to process personal data for a particular purpose and in such instances the lawful basis for such processing is your consent. If you have any questions, concerns or requests related to this Privacy Policy, our practices related to this website, or your information, please contact us via email at hello@waitwhat.com or postal mail at: Wait What Inc. Attention: Deron Triff 395 Hudson Street, 8th Floor New York, NY 10014 If we have reasonable doubts about the authenticity of any request to us, we may request additional information necessary to confirm your identity. We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourage you to periodically review our Privacy Policy for the latest information on our policy practices. If we have your email address, we might notify you of any changes to our Privacy Policy when they occur.
Accuracy of Your Information:
Updates and Changes to Our Privacy Policy:
Lawful Basis for Processing Personal Data:
Retention of Your Information:
