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

Hello, my fellow suffering beings, how we doing today?

Many people get their backup when they hear the word ethics.

I get it.

The word brings to mind images of finger-wagging, hypocrites, thundering from behind a pulpit.

Ethical guidelines have too often been used to circumscribe the actions and options of the many and privilege the few.

But Buddhism, in my view, is quite different in this regard.

In Buddhism, ethics are not supposed to be about moralizing.

They're supposed to be about making you happier.

It's enlightened self-interest.

There's a term I like, I don't know who coined it, the bliss of blamelessness.

If your mind isn't a flame ruminating upon all of the shabby ways in which you've treated

other people and if it's not spinning out trying to find ways to keep all of your lies

straight, there's a lot more room for calm, quiet, creativity, all the good stuff.

One of the greatest Western teachers on this subject of Buddhist ethics is, in my opinion,

Joanna Hardy, who also happens to be a friend.

One of the many things I love about Joanna is that she's totally open about her past transgressions and actually her current transgressions as well.

She's not trying to pretend to be perfect, which makes her, I think, a more effective proponent of Buddhist ethics.

She also has a pleasingly foul mouth. You're going to hear references to sex with melons in this conversation.

Just a little bit more about Joanna. She has practiced in multiple traditions since 1999. She's a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness Plus, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and much more. In this conversation, we talk about SELA, which is the Buddhist term for ethics.

We cover concepts such as right livelihood, right speech.

We talk about why we lie, the power of Buddhist tattoos, which I'm becoming increasingly convinced of.

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