This is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, kids.

It's always a big deal when we get the Maestro Joseph Goldstein on the show.

He's one of the greatest living meditation teachers at a huge figure in my own life.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation, both related to meditation and to life generally.

We talk about how to strike a balance between trying to hard and trying to little in meditation,

how to handle your doubts about whether you're meditating correctly.

What the Buddhists really mean when they say let it go, what Joseph means when he says,

don't waste your suffering and why he uses the word ridiculous so much to describe the way our minds work.

This is the third installment in a series we've been running this month on the eightfold path.

If you missed the first two episodes, don't worry.

Joseph starts our conversation with a brief description and explanation of this pivotal Buddhist list.

The list is basically a recipe for living a good life.

It's often divided into three buckets and we covered the first two buckets on the previous episodes.

And in this one, after doing an overview, we cover the final bucket, which includes the last three entries on the list,

right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Again, if you're new to the eightfold path or to Buddhism, this conversation is structured to be friendly to beginners,

so don't worry if you are having trouble with any of the lingo, any of the special words that have come out of my mouth

over the last few seconds, we're going to explain everything.

And I think you're going to like it for anybody new to Joseph Goldstein.

He is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world, a huge force behind the rise of mindfulness in modern society.

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