Joseph Goldstein On How To Train Your Runaway Brain

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.6 • 12.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You may have noticed that your mind is out of control. It's filled with racing thoughts, ancient neuroses and grudges, revenge fantasies… So why are we like this and what can be done about it?

Today, we're talking to one of our favorite people and also one of the most prominent meditation teachers in the West, Joseph Goldstein, about how "ridiculous" our minds are – that's a word he uses a lot to describe the mind – and some really compelling ways to train the mind. Spoiler: having a sense of humor is crucial here.

Just by way of context: this is the first in a series of episodes with Joseph, focusing on the phrases he uses while he's teaching Buddhism and meditation. Dan and Joseph are collaborating on a book that will be a compilation of these phrases and how to use them. This book won't be out for several years, but as Dan conducts a series of interviews with Joseph, we'll release them here on the podcast. There's another part coming out this Sunday, January 4th.

Just to give you a little taste, here are the phrases we'll be covering in today's episode:

Just begin again
Sit and know you're sitting
Relaxed, not casual
More or less mindful
Thieves of meditation
Mara, I see you.
Ridiculous
The mind has no pride
Soundtrack
The mind is the forerunner of all things.

These might not make any sense right now, but you'll hear Joseph explain each of these, where they came from, and how to use them in your meditation practice AND in your daily life. Incredibly practical, bite-sized wisdom.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:08.0	Hello everybody. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2006. We've got a fantastic pair of episodes to kick off this new year, both of them featuring my guy Joseph Goldstein. So let's get right to it.
0:32.4	You may have noticed that your mind is often out of control. It's populated by racing thoughts, habitual neuroses,
0:41.1	ancient grudges, I could go on. So what can be done about this? Today, as mentioned, I'm going to
0:47.3	talk to one of my favorite people, also one of the most prominent meditation teachers in the
0:51.6	West, Joseph Goldstein, about how ridiculous our minds are.
0:56.1	And by the way, that's a word he uses a lot to describe the mind, ridiculous.
1:00.3	So we're going to talk about how ridiculous the mind is.
1:03.2	And we're going to talk about some very compelling ways to train these unruly minds.
1:08.7	Let me give you a little bit of context for what we're going to do here. I
1:12.2	managed to convince Joseph to co-author a book with me. This book will not be out for several
1:17.3	years, but it's going to be a compilation of the phrases that Joseph uses while he's teaching
1:23.3	meditation and Buddhism. These are pithy, catchy phrases that are, as Joseph says, kind of like
1:28.7	hacks for working with your mind. I've been studying with Joseph for more than 15 years and I've made
1:34.1	a list of, I think, close to a hundred of these phrases, each of which has been incredibly
1:39.4	helpful for me in my own life and in my own practice. Some of these phrases are designed to help you with
1:44.8	meditation. Some of them are just to help pull your head out of your ass when you're stuck in
1:49.1	useless anxiety or you're in the grips of an unwise desire, et cetera, et cetera. So I've been
1:55.5	conducting a series of interviews with Joseph about these phrases, these Buddhist earworms, and these interviews will form the spine of the aforementioned book project.
2:07.0	And as I record these interviews, I'm going to release them here on the podcast.
2:11.5	So this is the first one I'm releasing.
2:13.5	There's another one coming out this coming Sunday, January 4th, and then many more will start dribbling out over the next year or so.
	...

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