220 - This Messy Gorgeous Love
Secular Buddhism
Noah Rasheta
4.8 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, I talk to Devon and Nico Hase about their book, This Messy, Gorgeous Love. We explore how the Buddhist concept of dukkha, or inherent unsatisfactoriness, applies to relationships, reframing difficulty not as a sign of failure but as a natural and even beautiful aspect of partnership. Key takeaways include understanding that relationships are inherently challenging, the importance of "deep listening" to ourselves, our partners, and the space between us, and redefining patience not as passive resignation but as active, courageous engagement with difficulty, or "patience with teeth." This approach offers practical tools for navigating conflict, such as understanding different conflict styles (volcanoes, diplomats, and dodgers) and practicing regular "check-ins" to foster deeper connection and understanding in our messy, gorgeous lives.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Secular Buddhism podcast is now on 8foldpath.com with transcripts, AI chat, and more. Visit 8foldpath.com. |
| 0:25.9 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism podcast. |
| 0:31.9 | I am your host, Noah Rochetta, and today I'm happy to share a conversation I had with Devin and Nico Haas about their new book, This Messy Gorgeous Love, a Buddhist guide to lasting partnership. |
| 0:41.7 | Remember, as always, you don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. |
| 0:45.6 | You can use what you learn to be a better whatever you already are. |
| 0:49.4 | If you're not familiar with their work, Devin and Nico are a married couple, |
| 0:56.2 | both meditation teachers, and they've been together for about 20 years. Each of them has somewhere around 30,000 hours of meditation |
| 1:02.7 | practice across three different Buddhist traditions, Zen, Insight, and Tibetan. They have lived in monasteries. They completed a three-year |
| 1:14.0 | cloistered retreat together, and for a stretch of years, they traveled the country |
| 1:18.4 | teaching meditation out of a 70-square-foot RV. So when these two people sit down to write a book |
| 1:25.0 | about relationships, they are writing from a perspective |
| 1:28.7 | that is both deeply experienced and contemplative practice and deeply lived in. And that, I think, |
| 1:35.5 | is what makes this book so refreshing. I was drawn to their book for a personal reason, like a lot |
| 1:41.7 | of you listening. I am in a long-term relationship. |
| 1:45.1 | I have a wife and I have kids. |
| 1:47.6 | I have all the regular stuff that comes with everyday life. |
| 1:51.0 | And I noticed how easy it is to fall into the assumption that if you have practiced long enough, |
| 1:56.9 | meditated enough, learned enough, eventually you'll arrive at a place where the relationship just |
| 2:02.9 | sort of works on its own, where the difficulty has been resolved. And of course, anyone who has |
| 2:09.9 | actually been in a long-term relationship knows that's not at all how it works. The difficulty does |
| 2:16.5 | not go away, but keeps showing up in new shapes. |
| 2:20.6 | And what Devin and Nico do in this book, and what we get into in this conversation, is they |
... |
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