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10% Happier with Dan Harris

The Science of Happiness | Emiliana Simon-Thomas (2020)

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.612.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a previous interview with Dan, the Dalai Lama said something along the lines of, "everyone's selfish; that's the way we're wired. But if you're going to be selfish, you should be wisely selfish." Wise selfishness takes into account the fact that what really makes humans happy is to care for other people. This notion has been a central part of the Buddhist platform for millennia, but is now being borne out in scientific research.  Today's guest is Emiliana Simon-Thomas. She is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, where she is a co-instructor of its Science of Happiness online course. In this conversation, Emiliana talks to us about the difference between empathy and compassion, how we can be happier by being more compassionate and connected, what we misunderstand about love, and a more scientific definition for that culturally loaded term. Just to note -- this is a re-run of an older episode we pulled out of our vault for a few reasons:  1) It's summer and we want to give our tireless staff a break; and 2) This is one of our all-time favorite episodes and one that many of our newer listeners may not have heard.  For more science-based happiness practices, you can download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/emiliana-simon-thomas-repost

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Before we get started with today's show, I want to tell you about something very cool

0:04.7

that we have cooking here.

0:06.0

Well, I think it's cool.

0:07.4

You can judge for yourself.

0:09.5

Here it is.

0:10.5

Back in October, I had the opportunity to spend some time with his holiness, the Dalai Lama,

0:15.6

Nobel Peace Prize winner, leader of the Tibetan Nation and exile, and arguably the best known

0:21.4

meditator on the planet.

0:22.9

I went with a small team to his home base of Darum Sala India to interview his holiness

0:29.4

for this podcast.

0:30.4

Yeah, I knew it would be interesting, but frankly, I very badly underestimated the sheer

0:37.0

volume of fascinating stuff that would go down while we were on the ground.

0:41.8

We ended up spending two weeks in his or it during which time we saw the Dalai Lama be directly

0:47.5

challenged about whether compassion can cut it in a cold world.

0:52.5

We witnessed his holiness make a bold and surprising and unconventional move in the name

0:57.8

of social connection.

0:59.8

We talked with him about dealing with difficult people, the concept of wise selfishness, the

1:05.3

deity who he believes is in charge of his rebirth, and we got a fascinating guided tour

1:11.0

of his own meditation practice.

1:13.9

Along the way, there were emotional breakdowns, sacred cows, marauding monkeys, and even some

1:19.4

potty humor from the Dalai Lama himself.

1:23.3

So much stuff happened that we decided to produce a five-part audio documentary, which is

...

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