A Buddhist Compass To Direct You Toward Happiness | Beth Upton
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.9K 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 the Sanditthika Meditation Community.
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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