This is the 10% Happy Your Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, everybody. How we doing? I have sometimes joked, and you may have heard me joke about this if you're a long time listener, but anyway, I've sometimes joked about my unlikely conversion from skeptical, anti-sentimentalist to somehow becoming a vocal proponent of a supremely cheesy meditation practice known as loving kindness or meta, M-E-T-T-A.

But today you're going to hear from a guy whose conversion on this subject has been way more dramatic than my own.

He self-describes as aversive, snippy, sarcastic, and scowling.

And yet he has become a deep student, practitioner, and teacher of meta and other related

practices.

Just to say by way of context here, if you're new to this practice, meta, it basically

involves envisioning a series of beings, either people or animals, and systematically sending

them good vibes via phrases such as, may you be happy, may you be safe, etc., etc. At first blush,

for many of us, this whole thing can seem, as I said, very, very cheesy, but the science

here is incredibly compelling, in my opinion. It shows that this practice can have psychological,

physiological, and even behavioral benefits. Also, in this age of anxiety, it's worth noting

that this practice was originally designed, as you will hear my guest describe it, as an

antidote to fear. Said guest is Devin Berry. He's been practicing meditation since 1999. He spent many,

many years of his life in silent intensive retreats. He's a Dharma teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation

Center and also at the Insight Meditation Society where he's a guiding teacher. In this conversation,

we talk about why mindfulness alone is not enough, how meta is part

of four related mental skills called the Brahma Viharas, the story of how and why the Buddha

invented meta practice, the role in practice of generosity, a year-long experiment that

Devin ran in both Meta and Donna. And lastly, we talk

about how these practices can help you both on the cushion and off. Two things to say before we

dive in. First, this episode originally aired back in July of 2024, but we're re-airing it now

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