A Buddhist Compass To Direct You Toward Happiness | Beth Upton
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The happiness recipe from ancient Buddhist psychology.
Beth Upton has been teaching meditation since 2014. Before that she spent ten years as a Buddhist nun, five of them in Burma under the guidance of Pa Auk Sayadaw. She currently leads Sanditthika Meditation Community in the caves of Almeria, Southern Spain.
In this episode we talk about:
- The Buddhist Abhidhamma, which Beth calls “particle physics for the mind”
- Why she’s interested in the broader teaching of Kusala (happy mind states)
- Practical ways to design our lives to get more Kusala
- The beautiful qualities of mind that all co-arise in a moment of Kusala
- How we get tripped up in the realm of the “unwholesome”
- How Beth navigates Kusala and Akusala in her day to day life
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:18.8 | Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today we're going to do one of my favorite things. We're going to nerd out on the Dharma. But in a way, and I want to assure you of this very, very early, in a way that is relevant and practical, which Buddhism pretty much always is. My guest today is a former Buddhist nun who underwent some of the most rigorous training possible over in Burma. |
| 0:40.2 | She hit some elevated, rarefied states of consciousness. |
| 0:44.4 | And her job now is to teach the rest of us unenlightened worldlings how we can get a little taste of what she tasted in our own lives. |
| 0:52.8 | She's going to dive into a section of the Buddhist teachings known as the Abidharma, |
| 0:57.8 | which she describes as particle physics for the mind. |
| 1:01.3 | Specifically, she's going to focus on a concept called Kusala. |
| 1:05.3 | Now, there are a lot of translations for that word Kusala, and my guest will get into all of the various translations. |
| 1:10.6 | But basically, what you need to know is that Kusala, and my guest will get into all of the various translations, but basically |
| 1:11.2 | what you need to know is that Kusala mind states are happy mind states. They're what we all want. |
| 1:17.4 | And today, my guest is going to give us the recipe for achieving the aforementioned Kuselah |
| 1:22.8 | Mind States. My guest is Beth Upton, who's been teaching meditation since 2014. Before that, she spent |
| 1:29.1 | 10 years as a Buddhist nun, five of them in Burma under the guidance of Pa Auk Saedah, a renowned |
| 1:36.3 | Buddhist master. Beth also spent many months doing long solo retreats in various caves and forests. |
| 1:44.3 | I had a lot of questions about that, as you will hear. |
| 1:46.7 | And she currently leads the Sanditika meditation community in the caves of Almeria, southern Spain. |
| 1:53.8 | I'm probably mangling the pronunciation of both of those words, Sanditika and Almeria, |
| 1:58.8 | Almeria, I guess. |
| 2:00.6 | Anyway, there is a bespoke companion meditation that comes with today's episode. |
| 2:04.8 | It focuses on the cultivation of gratitude, which is part of the aforementioned recipe for |
| 2:09.5 | Kuselah Mind States, and that meditation comes from our teacher of the month, Don Maricio. |
| 2:14.9 | As a reminder, we're now doing guided meditations for every Monday, |
... |
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