10% Happier with Dan Harris Folgen

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Most of us come into the world with the suspicion that we are the center of the universe. This self-preoccupation is natural, but it can often lead to unhappiness in the form of rumination, wallowing, comparison, etc.  Our guest today, author Karen Armstrong, has a clear proposal for how we can stop living what she calls "artificial" lives and shave down our inborn self-centeredness. Not for nothing, she believes her proposal has the added benefit of perhaps helping to save the planet.  Armstrong is a former nun who has become one of the world's leading thinkers on religion (particularly the monotheistic ones). She has written such bestsellers as: A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, The Battle for God, Islam: A Short History, and Buddha. Her latest book is called Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World. In this episode we talk about: Practices you can try for using nature as a way to make yourself happier How Armstrong conceives of God at this point in her life The benefits of the Confucian practice of "quiet sitting" How her time as a nun paradoxically made her more self-preoccupied rather than less And her definition of holiness Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/karen-armstrong-504

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers --- Ever have that experience where you catch yourself in a moment of anger, judgmentalism or fear? And, with a wince, immediately tell yourself a whole story about what kind of person you are? How do you stop this from happening or cut it short once it's already begun? The answer? Mindfulness or having the basic self-awareness to see what kind of mental states are arising so that you are not owned them. To use a technical Buddhist term this is called, "mindfulness of mind." It's the ability to see your mind states without taking them personally and it comes from one of the Buddha's most famous lists called the four foundations of mindfulness.  Today we are going to learn about the whys and wherefores of mindfulness of mind from one of the most esteemed living Buddhist scholars, Bhikkhu Bodhi. Bodhi is a monk, originally from NYC. He is a prolific translator, scholar, and author of books on the Buddha's teachings. He is also President of the Buddhist Association of the United States and co-founder and Chairperson of the Board of Buddhist Global Relief.  This episode is the third installment of a series we've launched on the four foundations of mindfulness. In this episode we talk about: The historical backdrop of the four foundations of mindfulness What exactly the Buddha meant by "mindfulness of mind" How we can know whether or not we are being mindful  How not to let our mindfulness become a sort of compulsive internal nanny state Practical instructions for the third foundation (given that the Buddha never actually gave them) And Bhikkhu Bodhi's view that we should not be mindfulness zealots Photo Credit: Hsiao Ying Chang (史曉瑛） Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/bhikkhu-bodhi-502

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today we're talking about an often overlooked source of suffering— housework. There are so many ways in which housework can be a bummer. Maybe we're feeling guilty about the fact that our place is always a mess. Maybe we're driving ourselves crazy with obsessive cleaning. Maybe we have relatives who are overly critical about the state of affairs in our home. Maybe gender politics with our spouses and partners is a source of strife.  Our guest today, KC Davis, helps deconstruct these often rigid and daunting cultural norms that surround the concept of domestic bliss. As a self-styled anti-perfectionist, Davis has garnered a huge audience on TikTok with more than 1 million followers. She has also written the book, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing. On today's show, she offers a ton of practical tips that are rooted in self compassion and the dogged determination not to use shame as a motivator when it comes to our domestic lives.  In this episode we talk about:  One of KC's slogans,"You don't exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you"  The difference between what's "normal" and what's "functional". For example, why that pile of laundry on the floor is just fine if it works for you Why it's important to think of house work as morally neutral. For example, why doing dishes has nothing to do with you being a good or bad person Why she doesn't believe laziness exists The power of what she calls "category cleaning"  Breaking the clean/not clean binary And achieving equitable division of labor around the house  Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kc-davis-501