This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello my fellow suffering beings how doing? Nirvana is a culturally confusing and

frated term. It's the name of the best rock band of the 1990s in my opinion it's the name of smoothie joints and

yoga studios there's a vape place near me called nirvana there's a car buying

and selling website called carvana so it's been fully co-opted and sometimes corrupted by the

culture and yet nirvana is also the clearly stated goal of the Buddha's

teaching so what does it mean, actually?

Making matters even more complex,

there's a kind of omerta or code of silence

about nirvana in some corners of the Buddhist world where teachers might reference nirvana sometimes but often won't talk about

whether they've experienced it personally. So we're going to dive into the deep end today going for a little bit of

Exotica and esoterica with my main man Joseph Goldstein, an incredible

meditation teacher who is in fact willing to talk about his experience with nirvana

and he also does an incredibly good job of explaining the concept and making it practical.

Should we all be striving for nirvana?

How not to try too hard is it attainable

for a normal person what does all of this have to do with our everyday lives anyway

and what practices can we do right now that might give us a tiny glimpse.

We cover all of that in what is an experimental episode for us,

not only because the topic is unusual, but also because this is our first podcast recording of a live show at the

armory in Boston in front of a sold-out crowd who did not know in advance that

Joseph would be the guest they kind of freaked out.

We would love your feedback on this because if it works and you like it, we will do more of this.

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