Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

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I'm here with Joseph Goldstein, who's a very old friend and quite respected meditation

teacher, and we're going to talk about all things related to meditation and mindfulness.

And Joseph and I have known each other for about 25 years, and he was one of my first

meditation teachers and became a friend a long time ago. We spent a lot of time studying

with other teachers in Asia. He's here recording this interview with me under less than ideal

audio conditions. So we apologize for that. Joseph, for those of you who don't know, started

the Insight Meditation Society in Western Massachusetts, and has probably done more than anyone,

certainly as much as anyone, to establish the practice of mindfulness in the West. And

this explosion of interest you see in mindfulness in the scientific community and in clinical

practice is largely the result of how clearly he and his colleagues have taught it to thousands

of Westerners. So Joseph and I are going to talk about mindfulness and the mind in general

and probably push into some areas of interest only to us and alienate 99% of our listeners,

but that's what we are free to do. So Joseph, thank you for being here and thank you for

agreeing to talk about all this with me. I'm delighted to have a chance to get back

into the meat of our discussions, which we've had over all these years.

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