I've had a meditation practice for about

15 years now and I got into it thinking

it would calm me down. I've got a little

bit of a highly tuned nervous system and

it has done that.

But over time and in the periods when

the practice is a bit deeper when I have

a little bit more grit under its tires

the thing it really seems to do is

alienate me from my own mind.

[Music]

I watch what is playing on the projector

of my psyche and I think why why did I

or something in here some part of me

load up that particular film and at

least in the way my mind works loaded up

again and again and again and again

and there are people who have been

thinking about and exploring this

strange way the mind actually works for

a very long time. One of them whose work

I've long been interested in is Mark

Epstein.

>> Have you ever heard of Mark Epstein?

>> Is he an artist?

>> Epstein is a psychotherapist. He's had a

private practice in New York for many

decades.

>> But he's also an eminent Buddhist

philosopher and author.

>> His first big book years ago was called

Thoughts Without a Thinker.

>> Remember everybody was reading that when

I first moved to New York.

>> Now a lot of people go to therapy. the

fact that it has all these dimensions of

mindfulness and awareness in it, it it

seems normal and natural, but but some

people built that bridge and Epstein was

one of them. His most recent book is

called The Zen of Therapy. And I've just

had this thought for a while. It just be

interesting to ask him after his decades

of therapeutic practice, his decades of

intense meditation,

what he's learned about the mind. How

does he think about how the mind works?

What is relationship you have to your

own thoughts when you realize you're not

the one controlling them?

[Music]

>> Mark Epstein, welcome to the show.

>> What a pleasure.

>> So tell me, after all these years, what

do you think a thought is?

>> My meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein,

I was on a retreat with him last year.

He said, "A thought is just a little

something more than nothing."

So, I really liked that. I thought, "Oh,

that's coming out of 60 years of his

meditation experience." So, I' I've been

I've been repeating that to myself a

little more than nothing.

>> Your first book had one of my favorite

titles for a book, Thoughts Without a

Thinker.

>> Yeah. And and I think that's the the

part of this that I want to get at that

that that strange sense that they just

happen.

>> Happen. Yeah.

>> Why do they happen?

The person

is uh in a predicament

uh in that they find themselves in a

body with a mind having to make sense

out of being in the world and uh uh

conscious internal subjective thought

seems to come along with that

realization.

So thoughts are in some way what we

would call the ego trying to figure out

oh my god what what what do I do in this

predicament you know the the the the ego

mediates between inner and outer and

between lower and higher you know that's

the function of the ego and thoughts in

this way of thinking would be like an

extension of the ego you know a tool of

the ego

>> see I would prefer it I think if they

felt like a tool well used. The the the

thing that I find very very alienating

when my meditation practice is a bit

deeper and I'm a bit more aware is

recognition that I'm constantly thinking

about things

that if I really were trying to figure

out how to live in this world in a

productive way, I would not be thinking

about all the time. The tendency of

thoughts to get stuck for them to

attract to negative imaginings of the

future. It's very strange when you begin

being attentive to not just that they're

arising, but that there's certain

patterns that you would not choose and

you're not sure then who chose them or

how they're being chosen and it doesn't

feel like you have a lot of control over

that uh process. It can be a mistake

from the Buddhist point of view to see

thoughts always as the problem. uh a lot

of people who get interested in

meditation

start to uh value the empty mind, the

mind with no thought as if that's some

kind of great achievement. Um one of the

first uh Buddhist texts that I ever read

that made a big impression on me when I

was still in college talked about the

the untrained mind as being the problem.

You know that a disciplined mind they

said was the road to nirvana, the road

to enlightenment. You know the point of

spiritual practice of meditation of

psychotherapy isn't to make you more

stupid. It it's to make you more aware

or more conscious so that you actually

have choices about the way you live your

life.

You you started that answer by saying

that it can be a common I don't think

you use the word mistake but I

understood you saying mistake

>> to fetishize the empty mind.

>> Why?

>> Well uh there there's something very

appealing about stumbling into an

experience of oh the mind is something

more than just the thinker of thoughts.

you know, it's actually very peaceful to

uh uh have that experience of the empty

mind. And we're all looking for

something, you know, something different

than what our everyday experience is.

So, it's easy to get attached to what

feels like a transcendental, you know, a

brief transcendental experience and or a

drug experience and then to to go

chasing that, you know. So it's not

about getting rid of thoughts or

devaluing thoughts. It's about

cultivating thoughts, you know, that are

uh um useful. Um I had a uh one of my

most profound experiences on a silent

meditation retreat uh was uh about 5

days into the retreat, my mind was uh

analyzing what the food was going to be

for breakfast. And it was like, okay,

the food is fine. I mean, it's like

yogurt and oatmeal and peanuts and

raisins, but where's the bread? You know

what what we really need is a piece of

toast? And that that was like what was

preoccupying me. And on about the fifth

day, bread appeared. And I put it in the

toaster and made a plate with butter and

jam and sat down and took my first

mindful bite, you know, very focused, no

thinking, just uh uh just the taste of

the toast, you know, so delicious. And

then my mind wandered and the next thing

I knew I looked down and I was like,

"Who ate my toast?" It was, it had

disappeared. Um, and where my mind went

immediately was who did this to me? You

know, searching for someone to blame.

And and I think that's the kind of

insight actually that precipitates out

of a deep meditation experience where we

see that so much of our mental activity

is trying to protect ourselves or trying

to find someone to blame for whatever it

is that happens that we're uncomfortable

with. So much of thinking is uh from a

self-centered place like that. and and

uh with with enough meditation practice,

we start to wade through a lot of that

crap.

>> So, in a way, the this uh podcast

Genesis is I was in a used bookstore in

the East Village and I I came across

that original thoughts without a thinker

book and it I'd always meant to read it

and then when I did read it that came

out what in the 80s

>> 95

>> 95 Okay.

>> It's very Freudian.

>> Yeah. And so I want to start bringing in

the the other side of your work here.

I think now a lot of us look at Freudian

work, Freudian theory and think, man, it

is strange people got excited about

that.

>> Mhm.

>> But Freud is a big influence on that

first book. What do you still find

valuable

about the way Freud understood or what

he did for psychotherapy or

understandings of the subconscious? And

what do you look at with a bit of uh

well, we all got carried away.

>> Well, I don't think we all got carried

away, but uh but a whole generation got

carried away. Freud Freud's been a big

influence on all of my books.

The whole way we think about the mind,

about the self, the unconscious, the the

instincts, that's all Freud. Freud, you

know, the 20th century, 21st century

conception of the mind, whether we agree

with everything that Freud said about

sexuality and whatnot, but it it's all

Freud. Freud

in a way

uh was a meditator. You know, he was

snorting cocaine and using that

heightened awareness to observe his own

dreams, his own mind.

>> Wait, I'm sorry. Really?

>> You know all this?

>> I do not know all this.

>> My my my Freudian knowledge is

>> thin. Oh, Freud, there's a rich a rich

uh

>> So, so what you're proposing here is

that the correct way to understand the

mind is to take a bunch of cocaine and

then observe. I'm not proposing that at

all, but many many people are are doing

that and it leads them into meditation.

Uh but no, Freud's whole thing at the

beginning of his career after he was

studying fish uh he he got into cocaine

uh he

>> a classic progression.

>> It it it's it can come out of uh many

different directions. Um and he his book

which was uh written around 1900 or

published around 1900 the interpretation

of dreams you you know he engaged in one

of the first selfanalyses

and uh you know began to really chart

his dreams, examine his dreams and

interpret his dreams. And his his whole

method of free association and evenly

suspended attention which was um the

purpose of which was to get the rational

mind, the thinking mind, the judging

mind out of the way so that you could go

deeper into your own personal

experience. That led him into the

discovery of what he called the

unconscious. And the the unconscious is

where all our secrets are stored. And

where the aspects of ourselves that uh

comes up in our dreams, you know, and in

our fantasies, where where like what is

that and where is that coming from?

Freud called it the unconscious. And

then he proceeded to develop a method of

probing the unconscious through

psychotherapy, which was a a a

revolution.

um he he promised too much, you know,

the same way that uh uh psychedelics are

currently promising too much or or

Prozac promised too much or meditation

promises too much because people want

something that will cure everything and

psychoanalysis couldn't do that.

When I read things that are heavily

influenced by Freud now, I'll read the

stories he's telling the the sort of

ideas he is spinning out. You talk in

your book about him taking a walk with

some friends and just ending up as they

seem a little bit uh dissatisfied

spinning out a very profound and intense

theory

about you know their relationship to the

passage of time.

>> Yes, absolutely. It's a it's a beautiful

little paper called on transients and

Freud ends it by saying is a flower that

blooms for only a single night any less

beautiful becau because of the short

duration of its life.

>> But what I I when I read that story in

your book and I've read other Freudian

um stories

>> what I think immediately is

well how does he know? I I feel like now

there is a um tendency to prize forms of

knowing that can be validated in some

external way.

>> Oh, totally.

>> Whereas Freud was a it always seems to

be a very insightful

storyteller.

>> Yeah.

>> But you sort of either bought into the

story or you didn't.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same with meditation.

>> Tell me about that. Well, there there's

a big effort now to document the

scientific benefits, you know, to prove

in the lab that when you're meditating,

something is really happening in the

brain. And uh and I started out in my

career working for a a cardiologist at

Harvard Medical School, Herbert Benson,

who did the physiological measurements

of transcendental meditators, showing

that their blood pressure could be

lowered and their heartbeat slowed and

their carbon dioxide output uh

diminished, you know. Um so I understand

the value of oh this is a real thing.

You know, science tells us it's a real

thing. But my experience of going on my

first couple of silent meditation

retreats, which you know, a week or 10

days of not talking, not making eye

contact, and just looking at my own uh

internal experience, that's what showed

me that meditation was a real thing, you

know, experientially. Oh, like like my

my mind is capable of more than just my

usual thoughts. You know, there's a

whole vast both interior and external

experience that I have never allowed

myself that that is opening up. Science,

if it was going to try to document that,

might be able to measure my heartbeat

in, you know, um but it couldn't get

close to the poetics of the experience.

You know,

>> if science can't find it, how would you

describe what it is that science can't

find?

>> Love

>> in meditation.

>> Yeah. In meditation like it like it the

the great revelation that can come uh

out of meditation is oh you start to

experience yourself as a loving being.

>> Why do you think that is?

>> I don't know. I think because we are

fundamentally loving beings and and you

know that's our true nature. I've always

been a little bit um I don't want to say

turned off, but the idea that like the

good nature is underneath.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, we're just trying to like pull

off all the crust and the crud and the

stories and the I is that what you're

getting at? And and I don't know. I have

little kids. Sometimes they're really

loving and and great. Sometimes they're,

you know,

>> Yeah.

>> slightly tyrannical.

>> Totally tyrannical. By the time they're

little kids, it's already happening. So

it's just when they're a baby that our

good nature is there. What is what is

that thing under underneath? And do you

do you actually believe it is underneath

or do you believe it is a thing we are

are shaping and then it feels like it

was always there in in in sufficiently

advanced meditation or moments of

awakening.

I had a conversation once with with

Ramdas who you know Richard Albert blah

blah uh who I was very very blah blah

Yeah Ramdas a great um eventually Hindu

influenced mystic also crucial figure in

the psychedelic revolution alongside

Timothy Liry the one of the most

fascinating lives of the 20th century

>> started out as a psychology professor at

at Harvard um I met him when he was

already in his uh uh Indian Ramdas

incarnation but I was just at Harvard I

was in my early 20s um and then I went

to medical school became a psychiatrist

didn't see him for 20 years he had a bad

stroke could hardly talk I went to visit

him and um he always sort of joked with

me he was like oh are you a Buddhist

psychiatrist now I was like I guess so

he said uh and he had trouble making the

words because he'd had a stroke do you

see them meaning my patient Do you see

them as already free? And it like took

me up short, you know, like do I see

them as already free?

But I had to say yes that that was like

that's what I had gotten from the

meditation side of things, you know. But

the mind is capable of

something so beyond what we normally

think of our minds as doing that the

shorthand for that would be love. You

know,

>> are you talking about something we would

understand as a mind or something more

like what we would understand as like

the shards of a soul?

>> Uh, from the Buddhist side, they use the

same word to talk about mind and heart.

>> Um, so put that together and I think you

get a soul. Um

so what's the you know if there's any

purpose behind our incarnations as

humans the purpose would be to come in

contact with that greater potential of

the mind and that's what all this uh

work is is about is uncovering to let it

shine through. Well, this gets to a a a

symmetry that you point out between how

Freud advised the therapist to show up.

>> Yeah.

>> And how um Buddhist meditation advises a

meditator show up, which is with this

unusual spirit of non-judgment.

>> Suspend judgment and give impartial

attention to everything there is to

observe. That's Freud, you know,

sounding like a Buddhist teacher. So

tell me what is valuable about that

orientation.

>> What that mental,

emotional, even spiritual state permits

is an openness to the other.

So when I'm being the therapist, I'm

just really curious, you know, and um

really trying to make room for

whatever it is that you if you were my

patient, what whatever whatever it is

that's happening truthfully for you in

this moment, you know, that that's what

I'm encouraging that hopefully there's

no hint of judgment. And I and I think

that's something that Freud was very

clear about. You know, suspend judgment

and give impartial attention to

everything there is to observe. That

makes space for someone. And it's very

unusual that we engage in that kind of

way with each other.

>> And how about from the meditative

standpoint? I think most people, I'm not

factchecking this, this is an opinion.

>> I think most people who initially get

into meditation get into it from a a

highly judgmental place.

>> Yeah.

>> Of their own emotional experience. Very

true for me. I would like to not feel

the way I am feeling all the time.

Anxious, spun up, you know, pulled along

by the current of my own thoughts. and I

have been told this can help.

And sometimes it does. Sometimes it does

the opposite and makes you more aware of

actually how stirred up you are. And

then you start telling this to more

experienced meditators and they say,

"Oh, right. Yeah, this was missold to

you. This is about being aware of what's

going on, not about attaining

this much more aquinomous state that

that that you were showing up

instrumentally

to grab hold of.

>> Yeah. It's not just about being aware of

what's going on. It's about changing the

way you relate to what's going on.

>> Coming into meditation, all I could see

was my own judgmental mind. You know,

I'm judging myself. I'm judging the

other people there. We're not even

talking. I'm not even looking at them.

I've got an opinion about everything.

That's what's occupying my mind. You

know, gradually with meditation, just be

mindful. See what's there. See, see what

you're feeling. See what your mind is

doing. Gradually, you see those goto

conditioned

responses to one's world.

that doesn't have to be the last word in

how you relate and and it doesn't feel

good and that's the main thing. So you

start to feel oh this doesn't feel good

and there's an alternative I don't have

to be judging you know

>> well you say that that's not my

experience of it I often will hear yeah

>> meditation teachers and for that matter

therapists say something like this right

it is the implication is it how I

feel about things what emerges into my

mind is under my control I understand

that I can be less reactive to what I'm

thinking or what

the feelings are still there. They just

feel like they're bouncing around inside

of me.

>> Yeah, the feelings are still there. I

think that I think that's the common

experience. Um the wish is that they're

just going to go away and you're going

to become a different person, but the

the much more common experience is that

you just are who you are. The reactions

are still there. But as a a one-time

teacher of mine used to say at one point

they were these big monsters you know at

an and the monsters became like little

in the mind you you know so you're

trying to cultivate equinimity the

Buddha talked about uh you know gain and

loss pleasure and pain uh uh sorrow and

so on as like the the the great winds

that blow through us. So it's uh uh

trying to get your mind into a place

like uh uh on the on the top of a great

mountain or under a big tree, you know,

where uh all the all the es and flows,

all the fluctuations are are part of uh

what the mind can tolerate.

And how much is this emerging

from the I don't know how to describe it

the lack of identification

with what we normally think of as the

the self. Um you have a line the more

you examine your experience the more

mysterious and elusive the self becomes.

This is an enriching if also a sobering

and humbling realization. And it's a bit

where I started, but but this feeling

that oh, I might be feeling this way,

but I'm not choosing it and I don't

necessarily have to follow it.

It's both valuable and it's very

strange. It's very self alienating. you

know, 10, 15 years into having a

meditation practice, I'm much less

certain

of why the things happening in my head

are happening than I was before when I

didn't question them. And I just assumed

that what was going on in my head was

the outcome of some cohesive

process and and and and self and set of

intentions that were, you know, I was

thinking about this and that's what I

should be thinking about.

Well, I think it's a really nice thing

to be less certain. You know, that the

that little bit of freedom that I was

talking about before, but that's that's

associated with being a little less

certain about everything, certainly

about the self, you know, um in Buddhist

psychology, one of the main principles

is

selflessness,

you know. So, it's taken me a long time

to, you know, get my head around self,

self selflessness, ego, egolessness. But

the thing that's that helped me the most

is the principle that in order to

understand selflessness, you first have

to actually find within yourself, you

have to locate within yourself the self

that doesn't exist, you know,

>> and that helped you understand it.

>> That helped me understand it. Yeah.

Yeah. Because like like uh when when I

looked down at my toast that wasn't

there, who who ate my toast, you know,

that was really me upset in, you know,

like no toast. Like what happened? Who

who can I blame? They say in in uh

Buddhist psychology, the best time to

find the self that doesn't exist is when

someone who you love hurts your

feelings. You know, accuses you of doing

something that you really didn't do. and

this thing in in in you seizes up, you

know, like how could you think that

about me in you know I didn't do that

that that me or that I that's why like

we're all you know conceited like that

you know so when those situations happen

and you feel really gripped by that

sense of of injustice you know from the

Buddhist point of view you can turn your

mind and look at that feeling and

there's the self. There's the self that

doesn't exist. You know, that feeling of

me is just a little bit more than

nothing. As Joseph said at when in the

beginning of our conversation, it's just

a feeling that under the power of uh

self-observation, it starts to break up.

I

>> I'm I'm married. I've had experiences of

feeling um

>> upset uh with my partner. I've had it

with my friends. I've had it with

myself, right? I'm constantly pissed off

at myself. And if there's ever a time

when the self feels strong and stable

>> Mhm.

>> it is when it is under threat.

>> Yeah. I don't know how stable it feels.

And when the the self feels strong and

indignant and and

>> so what about the looking inward?

>> Yeah.

>> Opens your patience.

Sometimes when I I I'm in that mode

to listen, the thing that I just hear is

like the endless recitation of why I'm

right in my own head.

>> Exactly. And I'm not sure it's helpful.

It's

>> not helpful,

>> but it's but it's definitely something I

can locate.

>> Yes. Exactly. That's my point. That's my

point. So that the self is actually

intrinsically relational. So, so the

self wants to be in relationship to the

other, but that feeling of, you know,

she hurt me. Uh, uh, that feeling of

righteous indignation pushes you, pushes

yourself into an isolated, defensive,

rigid, self-important,

judgmental place. That is that's not a

happy place. You know, as as right as

you feel about it, it's not a happy

place. So, what's the role? What's my

role as a therapist? One, to support the

feeling because I'm sure you're I'm sure

you're right. Um, you know, always and

but secondly, your marriage is important

and your relationship is important and

you care about whoever it is.

>> Okay. But what part of this at what

point are you seeing that the self does

not exist?

>> I understand the part of your sentence

where you located the self.

>> Yeah. I don't understand yet the part of

your sentence where you located itself

that does not exist.

>> Everything appears more real than it

really is.

>> We we see the world as this is all

totally real, you know, but it's not.

It's a it's much more uh um uh eancent.

It's much more impermanent. It's much

less stable than we want it to be. You

know, like the the final words of the

Diamond Sutra, you know, this is how you

should experience this fleeting world. A

star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a

flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a

flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.

So what I'm after when you come in and

you're putting yourself in that place of

that fixed certain hurt, angry place,

I'm trying to

uh loosen that up for you. You know, I'm

trying to loosen up that identification

with being you. You know, the angry you,

the hurt you, the judgmental you, the

the you know, you know, cuz there's this

is Freud's contribution. There's so much

about you that you don't know.

>> You you had a line I thought was

interesting where you said that

traditional therapy unpacks in order to

make sense. Meditation asks us to stop

making sense so that we can find where

happiness truly abides. Therapy examines

the accumulated self, the only one that

is shaped by all the defenses we've used

to get through life. Meditation asks us

to divest ourselves of those very

defenses.

Tell me a bit about that tension. Right.

You're sort of setting them up as almost

not not quite opposite ways of knowing,

but one mode is very

cerebral and takes the stories very

seriously.

And the other mode is in some ways

trying to get you to loosen your grip.

>> Yeah.

>> Be very very skeptical of the stories

your mind tells.

>> Yeah. I was trying to channel David Burn

there with the stop making sense.

Taking the story, one's own personal

story seriously

is super important. A and there's a real

tendency among people who don't have a

psychotherrapeutic

interest but are coming strictly from

the meditative point of view to sort of

diminish the importance of everything

we've learned from a 100red years of

psychotherapy. you know, early childhood

experience, emotional pain, uh even

traumatic events, like those those are

all just phenomena to be observed. You

know, don't make too big a deal. Uh um I

think that's a mistake. I I I think we

need to take ourselves seriously and

understand ourselves as best we can and

then begin to loosen the attachments

that we all have to the various events

that have formed us. So from the

spiritual side, you know, freedom from

identity is is like the goal, you know,

um and uh

we can see we can see what happens in

the world when people are unable to free

themselves from their identity. You

know, it's a it's a big cause of uh

conflict and pain, but those identities

are uh super important to be able to

make sense of too. So that's one of the

ways that I see these two worlds really

helping each other.

>> One experience I've had in therapy and

I've had very very positive experiences

in therapy and then not very negative

ones but

when I tend to exit therapy

>> it's often because I notice that I I I'm

it now feels like it is reinforcing

stories I don't want to tell. Mhm.

>> It is a space where I come in and it

feels like there's a pull to say

whatever I'm upset about that week and I

leave feeling more upset but somehow

more entrenched

in my upsetness that that that there's

one part of me maybe the meditative part

of me I'll I'll identify it as that

wants nothing more than to loosen the

stories I tell about myself

>> and they're going into this place where

I tend to keep telling them even if only

to examine them um over time it becomes

very hard to to to say well am I getting

better or am I getting worse or am I

getting more concretized in this one

narrative

how and I've definitely I think watched

people get stuck in therapy

>> and they're probably there for much too

long and it almost becomes a place of

ego right somebody to just listen to you

and reflect back at you how do you think

about when therapy talk therapy is

helpful and when it can become harmful.

>> Well, I'm not sure the length of time

that somebody stays in therapy is is the

right measure.

>> Um because uh what when therapy is good

when one one thing it can be good for is

that it it's a real relationship. Um,

and it can at its best be a surprising

relationship, you know, that that

continues to, uh, provoke and enliven

and and nourish. So, um, uh, so, so I

wouldn't judge it necessarily by the

length of time. Um, it's very tempting

as a therapist to

just sit back and be supportive of the

person in their struggle. Um, and I'm

sure I fall into that sometimes, but but

I'm also very aware of uh um

being provocative in some kind of way.

I'm always looking for how to undermine

the narrative, you know, and uh coax

somebody into a a perspective that they

might not have had if not for the

conversation

um that that that we're having. So, a

lot of the patients who have given me

any feedback about what they've gotten

out of being in therapy with me, uh,

they they all tend to say, "Oh, you you

always surprised me." And that's why I I

kept coming back cuz I never I always

thought you would, you know, say one

thing, but you said another thing. And

so, so I like that that that feedback

makes me feel like, oh, I'm maybe I'm

actually doing something helpful, you

know?

Uh, one thing I wonder about is, and I

I'm about to sound like a big skep

skeptic of therapy, and I'm not. I've

been in therapy with many different

therapists and have have uh gained

hugely through uh those relationships.

But we have this society right now that

is much more therapeutic than it has

been in any at any other point in

history. Much more influenced by

therapy. There are more therapists.

People go to it more often. It's more

destigmatized.

And you might think having

spread this treatment so far that you

would see this huge reduction in the

things that therapy most obviously

treats. Depression, anxiety, other kinds

of disorders you might find in the the

DSM manual. And we seem to not be seeing

that. We seem to be seeing a more

therapeutically informed society where

um where this has almost become more of

people's self- definitionf particular

among young people where sometimes feels

like anxiety is almost an identity. How

do you think about that that tension? I

mean, you know from your own work that

therapy can do great good and yet

somehow we have a much larger societal

dose of therapy in a much more

comfortable time to be a human being

than 100 years ago in in this country

and we don't seem to be doing great.

>> Yeah. I I I think that that there's

there's a lot of truth in what you're

saying. Um we we had a uh a series of

conferences a couple of decades ago

about uh Buddhism and psychoanalysis

bringing you know like RD Lang and uh uh

Ramdas and uh uh people like that

together and uh one of the conclusions

that came out of those uh conferences

were was that um uh one of the things

that psychoanalysis or psychotherapy and

and Buddhism or meditation, one of the

things they really share are that

they're uh two methods that don't work,

you know, because what people want from

them is, you know, like beyond what

either of them can do. So to try to

answer your question, neuroscience,

science, psychopharmarmacology,

you know, we really don't understand

uh the mind or the brain, you know, or

any of the major psychiatric disorders,

but bipolar disorders, schizophrenia,

OCD,

you know, even post-traumatic stress,

you know, there's a lot of talk about

the the neuroysiological coralates and

there's a lot of work to be done but you

know the genetics of it we don't

understand anything you know so in terms

of treatments the even the drug

treatments you you know are very crude

then there's a whole class of people

since the advent of prozac and the SSRI

and so on who um are hoping uh that this

medication or that medication will

free them in some way from thoughts or

feelings that have been played taking

them and sometimes those medicines

really help. So I I have a I have an ear

for when they might. And what I usually

find is that either they're going to

help or they do nothing. So it shouldn't

be a surprise that people aren't just

like magically better. Plus being a

person is really difficult. Having a

marriage is difficult. Having children

is difficult. Having parents are

difficult. Being in this world

politically is difficult.

uh you know even when the country is at

peace it's difficult you know work is

difficult so and psychotherapy

is like a miracle in our culture that

two people could come together in a room

with no purpose other than to talk about

what's happening you know between them

or in each of their lives kind of thing.

So there's a kind of comfort in it which

might really be what it's good for, you

know, like it's another it's it's a

relationship where you can be yourself.

And how many of those do we really have?

You know, it's true that it is hard to

be a person. And it's also true that we

don't understand much about people and

and the mind or the brain or these

disorders.

And it's also true that both therapy and

and in a different way meditation are

are very alert to to stories. And I I

guess something I have wondered over the

years is to what degree the therapeutic

stories we are telling are contagious.

That the more we become as society alert

and validating of the experience of

anxiety, more people begin to notice

their anxiety, noticing it makes you

more sensitive to the fact that you're

anxious and and it kind of begins to

build from there. I've felt that that

has happened to me at times. or trauma

is something we didn't talk about nearly

as much 30 years ago as we do today.

Now, my grandparents generation, my

great-grandparents generation,

they had far more trauma in their lives.

Like when I think about what happened to

them, what they escaped from, what they

dealt with.

And if you talk to them, I mean, and I

did when I was younger, they did not

describe themselves as traumatized,

right? that was not their self-

definitionf. I mean, and some of them

had gone through I mean, I'm Jewish. I

had gone through terrible things. And

today, trauma is omnipresent. You've

written a whole book on trauma. I mean,

you you describe in in in your book on

this trauma as a a kind of omnipresent

feature of everyday life.

>> How do you think about that? the sort of

rise of people believing the tra their

trauma is definitional to them despite

the fact that I don't think one could

really defend the proposition that

people who grew up in the '9s and 2000s

or the 80s and the '90s are net net

going through more things we would

objectively describe as traumatic than

the people grew up in the 30s the 40s

the 20s

>> well I think first of all the the

pendulum has swung about trauma like

you're saying so coming out of World War

I even coming out of World War II, the

the norm was not to talk about it, you

know. So the men who came back from war

and from from the trenches or from the

planes or whatever, the the the norm was

not to talk about it. And that worked

for some people and and didn't work for

other people and led to a lot of

alcoholism and secrets and uh you know,

acting out in ways that people didn't

understand and so on. and the

therapeutic culture that we're a part of

came around and began to see what the

downside was of that way of coping. The

intrinsic tendency of the ego, of the

self, the the intrinsic defense

mechanism is to look away. And that's

when the when the Buddha used the word

dooka to describe, you know, suffering,

life is tinged with a sense of

unsatisfactoriness or suffering. Um the

actual word dooka can be broken apart

and translated as hard to face. A and uh

the problem with that is that we never

put words on it. You know when trauma

either little trauma of you know second

grade being difficult or uh big trauma

of losing a child or a partner or a

piece of your body or whatever. My my

sense of the of what can be therapeutic

in that with in those conditions is to

help a person who has been through

something like that begin to articulate

what the experience really was. And uh

once it's articulated, it can either

become, you know, a a thing that gets

overarticulated like you were saying

where it becomes the defining narrative

or it can take its place in a person's

history so that they have the

understanding, they've achieved the

understanding and they can begin to file

it away in a conscious in a conscious

way, in a conscious place rather than it

being stored in some kind of unconscious

place where it where it leaps out in the

shadows, you know, and and wrecks a

life. So the overart articulation of the

anxiety that one could say is a normal

part of being a human um is um just as

much a problem as the as the suppression

or or repression. Um because

once you're over identified with any

aspect of your experience, then you're

falling into the trap of conceit or of

self and that becomes a limiting factor.

Um and it it's sort of like it's making

me think about, you know, the the swings

of the pendulum in terms of uh infants

and their and parents and their and the

infant sleep. You know, when when we had

kids, it was all about ferour and you

had to ferberize your child and let them

cry and then the pendulum swung and it's

like sleep in the same bed and and uh

you you know there's problems on on

either side. Let let me ask you or try a

thought on you and and see what you

think of it. In my in the people I have

known who have gone through profoundly

terrible things, things people should

not have to go through. The people I've

I've known who it seems have emerged the

healthiest.

Um, in some case I feel like they're

much healthier than I am with my more

gentle existence are the people who have

eventually turned the work they were

doing inward to work they're doing

outward.

that something about what they went

through and the way they processed it

became a way they began to interact with

others and they made meaning out of it.

It became part of the way they give

their own gifts into the world and it is

deepened their own sensitivity and

empathy and the the set of tools that

they they they use to help others. And

then the people I've known who have

struggled more, I feel like they've sort

of gotten trapped on the internal part,

right? It's become not just a story

about them, but a story that has kept

them trapped inside themselves and uh a

way they've sort of it's become a way

they don't have to engage as much with

other people and other people's

experiences because like theirs has

remained so overwhelming. There's

something about being able to turn the

internal experience into something

external

that that seems important, but my sample

size here is

>> No, I think you're totally right that to

me that seems totally correct. The

common tendency when some horrible thing

happens that we feel should never happen

to anyone, but those kinds of things are

going to happen to everyone. um because

we all face old age, illness, death,

separation from the loved etc. But when

it happens in an in an obvious extreme

way, the um

the the the common psychological

tendency is to feel like I'm the only

one who this is happening to. They they

call it a sense of singularity

and that is very imprisoning. you know,

it's totally normal. Like, of course,

like you you you know, the the floods

that are happening now at the in the

camp in Texas, you know, that should

never be happening. All these all these

parents are losing their kids, you know,

uh um and each one is going to feel

like, you know, the singularity of that

experience. No one is going to be able

to relate to this. And they, you know,

there are a couple of great Buddhist

stories, famous Buddhist stories where

the Buddha comes upon a a woman whose

child has died who won't put down her

dead baby and and everyone the villagers

are scared of her and and uh she's

acting like a crazy person and she says,

"Isn't there anyone who can help me?"

And they point her towards the Buddha.

The the Buddha says, "Yeah, I've got

medicine for you. Just all I need is a

mustard seed from a family in, you know,

anywhere, a family in the village where

no one has lost a a husband or a wife or

a parent or a child. Just go bring me

the mustard seed. And she goes uh she

goes and talks to everyone and she can't

find anyone who hasn't experienced uh

this kind of loss. And one of the great

benefits of working

in a psychotherrapeutic way with an

event like that is that sometimes you

start to feel like

even though this horrible thing has

happened to me, like this is a window

into all the horrible things that are

happening everywhere to everyone. I

don't have the quote from you in front

of me, but but in that book about

trauma, you you write something that is

like trauma is an experience is a is a

terrible experience that is not

relationally held.

>> Mhm. Yeah. Well, what what makes it a

terrible experience is that it's not

relationally held. Like the like the

need is for

the holding in the aftermath of of

something like that, you know. Tell me

about the relational dimension of it

though.

>> Well, we're we're relational beings.

That's the that's the great revelation,

you know. We think we're we think we're

isolated individuals,

you know, like locked inside our heads

with our thoughts. You you know, like

like uh uh in competition with with

everybody else, but we're but we're not.

We're from the beginning, from infancy,

we're relational beings. We know

ourselves through the the reflection,

the mirroring of the parent. You know,

we are constantly in relationship to our

world. We're not separate from the

world. We are of the world and we are of

each other. So, we need each other, you

know, we need each other to make sense

out of our experience.

>> The the the needing each other is

it's such an interesting dimension of

being human.

you know, when um you know, in the in

the classic sort of origin story of the

Buddha, you know, goes out and sees old

age, goes out and sees sickness, sees

death, sees loss. It's not just it'll

happen to you, it will happen to

everybody. And it makes being in

relationship with anybody very

frightening all the way down to the the

very the the small bits of it which is

far before you face any of that just the

the the knowledge that the on the one

hand that you need people terribly and

on the other hand that you won't always

get what you want from them.

>> Yeah.

>> Like the nature of other people is they

cannot fully give you what you want

because they're someone else.

>> Yep. And like there's always going to be

that gap between the two of you.

>> Yeah.

>> You have a book about uh desire

uh which is a very important concept in

in Buddhism. It's sort of all about

this. Can you give me a little bit of

that that thesis? The book about desire

was written to try to defend desire from

the Buddhists who uh who kept saying

when they talk about the four noble

truths, you know, the first truth is

suffering, the second truth is the uh

the cause of suffering and the cause of

suffering is desire. And so all these

all these uh people who I knew who were

Buddhists were running around like like

denying their desire you know or in a in

deep conflict about their about their

own desires especially their erotic

desires. Um, so my understanding of the

Buddhist teaching was not that he was

saying that the cause of suffering was

desire, but that the cause of suffering

was clinging or craving or ignorance.

And the the clinging or craving or

ignorance had to do with trying to get

more from one's desire than desire was

able to yield. um which is what you were

paraphrasing there that that desire um

often if not always leaves a gap you

know the gap between what's imagined and

and Freud wrote about this very

beautifully the the gap between what's

imagined what's desired and what's

actually possible and Freud called that

the reality principle you know uh that

the pleasure principle runs into the

reality principle um and the Buddha

talked about the same thing.

>> You have in in in the book about desire

this quote that I found very moving.

>> Love is a revelation of the other

person's freedom.

>> Tell me what that means to you.

>> That's the best quote in the book. Um

the

the wish, the inclination

of erotic desire

is to fully possess

um or become one with the loved

object, person, body, however you want

to say it. The revelation is that the

other person's subjectivity can never be

totally known. You know, no matter the

the uh desire, no matter the love, the

there's a separation there which can't

be breached. So, and love means you

allow that, you know, um, and you

actually experience it, you know, as

first as a disappointment,

um, and then as a release.

Tell me what you mean when you say

experience it as release. Like, what

what does it mean not just have the

revelation of the other person's

freedom, but actually to respect another

person's freedom? Love that allows the

other person's freedom means that you

can let them go away with the faith and

the understanding that they will return.

So that that

permission and that faith I is part of

is an essential part of love.

You talk about there always being a

residual of loneliness in in all

relationships and you say in the

revelation of another person's freedom

is a window into a state of

non-clinging.

>> You go on while desire yearns for

completion and seeks it most commonly in

love, it can find the freedom it is

looking for only by not clinging.

>> What does that mean?

um that the space between the liinal

space, this the space of disappointment,

the space where where you're thrown back

on yourself is a um a spiritual place

and uh it's a a very important place to

explore and it takes you deep into the

self in in a um unscripted

and uh potentially nourishing way. And I

in the in that book I quoted the poet

Anne Carson who has a beautiful book

called Aeros the bittersweet where she

quotes Safo and she she's a a scholar of

ancient Greek. Um but she says the Greek

word for bittersweet you know is

actually sweet bitter that it's turned

around in English. the sweetness comes

first, but then because there's always

like a little bit of a letdown, you

know, that there's where the bitterness

is. And the the Buddha uh in his

teachings was actually saying that gap,

you know, is interesting. And that if

instead of turning away or getting angry

or getting frustrated or trying to

squeeze more out of the object of

desire, if instead we can settle our

minds into that gap with less judgment,

you know, that there's an important

lesson there that will help us uh with

old age, illness, death, and any other

tragedies that are going to befall us.

you you have a a lovely I think it comes

from the the teacher Steven Bachelor in

that book, but he talks about this

difference between holding uh a coin in

a clenched fist and holding it with an

open palm.

>> Yeah.

>> And I found that to be a very resonant

visual for me. But but how do you

understand that that difference? Because

nobody's saying you're not saying that

people can or should get rid of desire

or that the suffering will go away or

any of it really, but that there's some

difference between clenching around

things and still holding them. But but

being there being some space around it,

>> what creates a space?

>> For me, one of the prime

motivations of desire is the

the need of the self to

uh

come in contact with its own mutability,

>> you know. So it's the it's the need of

the self to to to merge temporarily with

the other to loosen its boundaries. So

the clenching that can come with desire

is basically holding on too tight to we

we say in psychoanalytic uh language the

the object of our desire you know even

though it's a person not an object which

tends to uh alienate the other or push

them away or actually get in the way of

the experience of the other. the the

open hand holding holding the other with

an open hand allows space uh around both

of you, you know, so that there's room

for the inevitable moving away. Pull out

of the metaphor of the holding, right?

Like let's literalize that. We all have

things that that we want, we desire, and

then when they don't happen or they

happen not the way we were hoping they

would happen, we get upset, right? I

wanted this night to go this way. I

wanted this trip to not get cancelled. I

wanted this promotion to happen,

whatever it might be. And I understand

the the the clenchist as a kind of

anger, right? I wanted this thing and I

didn't get it or I didn't get it in the

way I wanted to get it and now I'm upset

and I'm trying to change it or I'm angry

at people for it or I'm angry at myself.

What is it?

What is the actual experience of being

open palmed about it? Because I try

sometimes

and I almost feel like what I end up

doing is like white knuckling through my

own emotional response. It's like I know

that I'm trying to be open palm this.

going to sit here and and endure it.

You know, the this is a good metaphor

because we all understand what it means

to open and close a fist.

But emotionally,

internally,

what are you talking about? uh

emotionally, internally. What I'm saying

is all of those feelings are going to

come, the the frustrated ones that

you're talking about, but they don't

have to hold you tight, you know,

because the spaciousness that comes from

opening up the palm is what allows you

to move into the new reality.

>> But how do you do it?

>> Just by opening the palm.

>> Okay. But there's no palm in this. We're

we're not actually holding things.

>> The palm is in your mind. Yeah.

>> My experience of emotions having a hold

on me to get very specific about it

>> is I'm upset about something and I can't

stop thinking about it,

>> right? It just plays and replays and

replays and replays and every time I

catch myself, I can be like, "Oh,

there's a thought again." But it just

keeps happening and it feels like a

storm inside me, like energy.

And I can let it out, yell at somebody,

yell at myself, right?

And I don't I'm actually pretty good at

controlling that kind of thing usually,

but it's still there.

I don't know what it would mean in that

moment. Yeah.

>> To open my palm.

>> I don't feel like I have control.

>> I'm not saying that we actually have

control over over our emotional

responses to things. If something is

making you angry, you're going to get

angry before your thinking mind can can

tell you not to. So, um, uh, I think

it's it's it's trickier than that. It's

that once

the difficult emotion is aroused,

we don't have to completely indulge it.

There's always a moment when

self-awareness kicks in. And it's at

that moment when the self-awareness

kicks in that we have a choice. So you

really you could try visualizing opening

your palm. You know like that that

literally

um you know what some behavioral

cognitive behavioral people might have

you do is actually try to think those

thoughts consciously more rather rather

than gh I can't stop them and they keep

coming you know. So you could play with

it in v in various ways, but the and the

idea is to begin to play with the

reactions, you know, rather than feeling

besieged by them. And you might have to

try, you know, five different things.

But and is that something that you feel

over your life, over your practice, over

your therapy? you've gotten much better

at like how what is the difference

between how Mark Epstein handles an

upsetting situation today versus you

know when you were in college?

>> Uh there's not much difference. Um

>> all all this work you've done, all this

meditation, it's you stay in the same

place.

>> When I'm when I'm upset about something,

I'm I'm upset in much the in much the

same way. Hopefully it doesn't go on as

long. Uh

>> so what was all this for then?

>> Well, something to do.

Come on. I either either you don't

believe the thing you're telling me or

this undermines the book somewhat.

>> Um I don't think so. I think it it's all

in the attitude that one has towards

one's experience.

>> Well, but that might be the the

difference.

>> That is the difference.

>> So, what is the difference in the

attitude you would have had when you

were 20 to the attitude you would have?

>> Oh, I have much more of a sense of humor

about about myself. um uh at least in

the immediate aftermath of whatever it

is that is uh has been so upsetting. I

mean I definitely I'm I definitely get

upset about what I get upset about. Um

and the people who are close to me have

to have to live with that. There's no

>> So you've not become non-reactive.

You've not

>> No, I don't think that that's a

possibility.

>> So what is a possibility here? What if

if if you do a lifetime of this work and

it goes well, what what have you

achieved at the end of it? Aside from

that, it was interesting. And I agree

that meditating is interesting.

>> Yeah. Oh. Oh. What what have you

achieved? Um peace of mind.

>> But it doesn't sound like you have peace

of mind. It sounds like you're stormy.

>> No, I have peace of mind. Definitely.

>> All right. Match those up

>> within within the storminess.

>> I'm not trying not to be stormy.

>> So people are dealing with you being

stormy. they have to sort of handle that

you're you have the temper you always

had and the upset you always had.

>> What part of you has peace of mind

during that or is it just later that you

are better at returning to something

more aquamous?

>> Um

well it's not a part of me that has

peace of mind either I have it or I

don't have it. Uh because there's only

one of me if there is one of me. Um uh

but I have I have confidence in the

people who are around me that they they

know me and can um uh not be destroyed

by me. Um so that so that's very

reassuring. So, so I have uh um uh uh I

have permission from the from the

environment that uh uh that I'm not so

bad that I'm going to destroy, you know.

So, that's very uh uh helpful as as a

container. And um and I know that the um

uh frustrated, violent, angry, sad

reactions are just reactions and not

really who I am. Um so there's always a

part of me that's looking at it like uh

oh, you know, if I were going to write

something, what how would I how would I

portray this, you know?

>> So the the peace of mind is a subtle

deidentification.

>> Yes. with the experience you're having.

>> Yes, absolutely.

>> And that and what does that do for you?

>> Uh it makes me less afraid.

>> Of what?

>> Of myself.

>> And you used to be more afraid of

yourself.

>> Um uh I don't know if I was consciously

aware of that, but I was anxious.

>> Uhhuh.

>> Uhhuh.

>> And and so that has created a You do not

find those experiences as

>> Yeah. It's created a buffer.

>> Uh-huh.

>> Yeah. Buffer is an interesting word. I I

feel like in the periods of my

meditation is going well which is not

always the thing I have is buffer.

>> It's very slim but it's just like a

little bit of separation

>> and it's very valuable and it's very

hard to maintain

>> but it is just like a couple

milliseconds between me and my

reactions.

The thing that comes with that is a kind

of humor

>> wi-i

>> which is very helpful when dealing with

oneself who we tend to take ourselves so

seriously. So I think that's the other

way to answer your question like what

what has changed? I think I have a

little more of a sense of humor about

myself or about situations

as as terrible as they can be.

>> Doesn't Joseph Goldstein have a line

that's something like enlightenment is

lightening up? uh he might Yeah.

>> And I'm not saying that you're

enlightened, but you're sort of getting

at something like that, which is that

there's a a lightning up here.

>> The I I think in terms of uh you know,

what does all this really do,

>> like like um I think that the lightning

up is probably as good a way of talking

about it as as any. I um I had a friend,

he's deceased now, a psychotherapist

named Jack Angler who um he was already

into the meditation stuff, took all the

psychological testing, the roar shock

test, projective tests, went to India,

uh gave all those tests to uh control

group, beginning meditators, advanced

meditators and meditation teachers. And

what he found was even in the most

advanced meditators there was no

dimmonition of internal conflict there

was just a greater willingness to

acknowledge the conflict. So he was a

little disappointed you know like um but

I think that plays into what I'm saying

you know like like you're still you no

matter what you're doing you're you're

still you but maybe something maybe

there's a little change. Do you feel

that there's a difference in

what your mind or your awareness

attaches to? And and here's what I mean

by that. Even in my own experience,

if I get a a really good night of sleep

and my kids are being um challenging,

my ability to look at that challenge

with humor or even be with them in it is

extremely different than if I got a bad

night of sleep. And that is holding what

they are doing completely constant.

And then there are people I know who are

much have much deeper meditative

practices and and other kinds of

practices than I do. And I'll sometimes

be with them and I'll notice that their

mind will incline towards the things

they like in a situation in almost the

same way mine will incline to the things

that dissatisfy me in a situation. And

and I wonder sometimes if like the the

point of of of this path of this work is

to try to like change what is attracting

you, right? Change what you're noticing,

change what you're fixating on, right?

The the beauty of the moment rather than

the the the edgginess of it. Do you feel

that that is true of Is that a viable

thing to hope for? Is that too much? I

liked what you were saying about when

you get a good night's sleep, your way

of relating to the kids is different

because I think what meditation is

trying to give us is the equivalent of a

good night's sleep. It it doesn't

guarantee a good night's sleep. But the

but the attitude that you found in

yourself, you know, when when uh when

dealing with the kids, that's how we're

training ourselves to be with our own

minds in meditation. It's very

analogous. and and that thing that

you're describing of benevolently

looking to the good uh uh you know

supporting that uh recognizing but not

judging too uh uh too critically what

you don't like all all of that is

beneficial for the mind

>> and then always our final question what

are three books you'd recommend to the

audience

>> a new book called John and Paul a love

story by Ian Leslie. Do you know that

book?

>> I've heard of it. Yeah.

>> About the Beatles about You think you

know the Beatles, but you don't know the

Beatles?

>> Seemed to me we needed another book

about the Beatles.

>> It we who thought that we It's so good.

It's

>> I've heard this actually from other

Beatle Beatles.

>> Not from Not just from a Beatle in terms

of the mutability of the self and the

creative act and love. It's It has

everything. Um it's fantastic. Um Donald

Hall the poet. uh uh essays after 80.

Donald Hall was a like like a sort of

straighter straighter poet than the beat

poets, but of the same time period. He

was married for many years to Jane

Kenyon who was younger and everyone said

to her, "What are you with this old guy?

He's going to die." Uh but then she died

and so he was he was alone. He stopped

writing poetry, but he kept writing

essays from his farmhouse in New

Hampshire. And the essays are incredible

uh about having lived a whole life. Um

some of them about being 80 and some of

them reflecting back to when he was

young and it just gives a sense of

someone who has a cohesive

uh life and a wonderful voice. Totally

inspiring. Um, and the third book I

would say um to recommend is a novel

called Chyros K A I R O S by Jenny

Urpenbeck, who's a German German writer.

So, it's translated and it's um a

wonderful novel about uh the breakup of

uh of Berlin, the wall following in

Berlin and a it's a love story about a

19-year-old girl and a 50-year-old man

that uh is incredibly compelling.

>> Mark Epstein, thank you very much.

>> Thank you, Ezra. Great to be here.

[Laughter]

Hey,

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, hey, hey.

[Music]