The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #1062 - Dan Harris & Jeff Warren
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,085 words- 0:06 – 2:07
Dan’s first sensory-deprivation tank: fear, claustrophobia, and shrinking your life
- JRJoe Rogan
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dan Harris and Jeff Warren. I don't know why I started off that way.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It just felt weird. It's- it's always weird to start.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Starting these things is always very odd. Uh, welcome. Welcome, Jeff. Very nice to meet you.
- DHDan Harris
Thank you, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, Dan, first tank experience. We didn't talk too much about it.
- DHDan Harris
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
You just got out-
- DHDan Harris
Yeah. You- you- you dragged me-
- JRJoe Rogan
... of the sensory deprivation tank (laughs) .
- DHDan Harris
... into your tank.
- JRJoe Rogan
See, I don't even know if that's a word, dragged-
- DHDan Harris
Can-
- JRJoe Rogan
... goon?
- DHDan Harris
It is a word. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
... uh, you know, we should tell people how you did it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DHDan Harris
You basically taunted me on text.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- DHDan Harris
Which was awesome.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it wasn't quite a taunt.
- DHDan Harris
You called me a chicken. Um, but you were- You called me a chicken.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you were saying that you were scared of being in there. I'm like, "How can you be scared?"
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"There's nothing to be scared of. It's just water."
- DHDan Harris
Yeah, but it's not just water because you're in this enclosed space.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
And you can't see anything or hear anything. It's a weird-
- 2:07 – 4:04
Stress inoculation: martial arts, live TV, and learning to relax under pressure
- JRJoe Rogan
It... I think it ha- well, it happens just people in general, and I think it's one of the reasons why people fall into panic, is because they don't have enough experience with stressful situations to the point where they could just relax and just let it happen. And that- that's one of the things that I- one of the reasons why I think martial arts training is very good for people, not just for the self-defense aspect of it, but for the aspect of just dealing with stressful situations on a regular basis to the point where you're very comfortable with them. And then you realize that the consequences of this is- it's not really as bad as you think it is, like the, uh... Most people are terrified of physical confrontation, but when you have physical confrontation on a regular basis, especially through, um, my favorite, which is jujitsu training, because y- there's no striking, so you don't get hit in the head, you're not worried about brain damage or any of that stuff, it's just basically grappling. But that through the continual process of testing yourself and stress and regular life stresses sort of become diminished.
- DHDan Harris
I think it's really important. You know, I do some of this in my life. I mean, live news presentation-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... is stressful-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DHDan Harris
... and I do that a lot. Uh, I've covered many war zones, which is str-
- JRJoe Rogan
Much more stressful.
- DHDan Harris
... very stressful, but I think there are areas in my life where I've closed off, um, because of claustrophobia in particular. I- I need MRIs for cer- (laughs) I've jacked up my sh- both my shoulders and my knee, and I haven't been able to deal with them because I just won't get in a scanner.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DHDan Harris
Jeff and I were down at, actually, at Vanderbilt, where they wanted to take a look at my brain in a scanner while I meditated. I couldn't do it. That was a great opportunity. It's really expensive to get a neuroscientist to look at your brain while you meditate, and I wasn't able to do it because I'm- I'm afraid, uh, and so I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
But what are you afraid of? It seems like there's no physical fear, right? It's not like there's a dog in the room that's gonna bite you, r-
- DHDan Harris
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... so why not just force yourself to go through it?
- 4:04 – 8:29
What a panic attack feels like—and why the brain ‘gets good’ at it
- DHDan Harris
Well, have you ever expe- have you ever ha- had a panic attack?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- DHDan Harris
So, a panic attack is, you know, we evolved for this fight-or-flight instinct, where your brain, you know, when you're faced with a saber-toothed tiger or whatever-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DHDan Harris
... the brain floods with adrenaline, and, uh, it is overwhelming. I mean, it overwhelms all reason, and you, uh, either fight or flight, and in this case, it's flight, uh, uh, flee, and you- you're- you're- you can't control your body in many ways.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DHDan Harris
And, uh, because I've had so many panic attacks, um, primarily th- the- the ones that people know about or the o- the one- one in particular was on television, on Good Morning America in 2004, when your brain learns how to do this, it gets really good at it. And, uh, there's n- you can't hurl yourself into the, um... at least I can't hurl myself into the l- lotus position and meditate it away. It is overwhelming. And so, I can't tell myself a story about, "Hey, I'm not in physical danger," because the bo- the brain is just (imitates explosion) .
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what you're saying is very interesting about getting really good at it. There's a- a term in archery called target panic, and it happens to people. It happens to target archers. It happens to bow hunters. And there's a thing that happens where you literally can't keep the pin on the target. Your- your brain won't let you, and no one understand... Like, the people that are having it, like, while it's happening, they don't understand it. Like, "I can't believe I can't do this."
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But your brain gets so used to freaking out in this moment that literally you no longer have control, and you just... You try to make the shot go off as quick as you can. You'll miss by feet.
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you just, you can't... Do you understand? Like, I practice every day. Like, how is this happening? But if there's this weird, overwhelming sensation of adrenaline and fear and nerves and the- the chaos of the moment, and you just slam the trigger, and the arrow goes flying, nowhere near the target.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's really, really common to the point where people seek psychologists and sports trainers, and there's all these different methods that they use-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to try to keep in- in a controlled loop system of- of thought process to try to handle this.
- DHDan Harris
It's probably like, uh, you- you said athletic trainers, probably, the-... the fighting it and the getting in your head about it is probably the same as when you get in a slump in baseball.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. Yep.
- DHDan Harris
You know? It's- you're just locked up in yourself and it takes a long time to get over it. That is, you know ... I- in the tank, I was thinking a lot about how that has been just a huge recurring theme in my life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
Where, the- the ego steps in, the thinking mind, the- the mind that won't surrender to what is actually happening right now comes in, I get locked up, and can't do what I wanna do. One of the things Jeff and I have talked a lot about in our, um, time together is dancing as an ... A- and I can't do it. I mean, "can't do it" isn't the right way to say it, but ... I've struggled for a long time with dropping my self-consciousness enough so that I can dance in a way that, uh ... You know, I have a three-year-old around the house and we like to dance and even around him, I get a little in my own head about it. And I think all these things are related.
- JRJoe Rogan
They must ... Yeah, they have to be. It j- it completely makes sense. But it doesn't make sense to me that you can't get your brain examined when you spend so much time examining your brain.
- DHDan Harris
Yeah, so I make-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
What's different is- is ... This is an interesting time to talk about, like, the difference between the brain and the mind.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DHDan Harris
So I'm looking at my mind, um, and, uh, you know, the- the idea of- first of all, (laughs) just because I spend- I've spent the last nine years looking closely at my mind doesn't mean that I've conquered all of my neuroses.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DHDan Harris
And I don't know that that's on offer. I think it's a gradual process. You pointed to something important about testing those limits, and I think meditation could be really helpful in testing those limits. And I was meditating most of the time that I was in the tank. Um, and that allowed me ... Bringing that kind of focused attention to what was happening allowed me not to get carried away with the waves of fear that came and, uh, and I was lo- all- able to let them pass without hopping out and embarrassing myself. Um, but I don't know that I can magically ... I think it's gonna be a process-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- 8:29 – 14:07
Fixing shoulders and minds: hanging therapy and ‘impingements’ as a shared metaphor
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, if you have damaged shoulders, man, you kinda have to.
- DHDan Harris
I do. I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you ... But you don't even know what's wrong with them.
- DHDan Harris
I think it's bursitis, but I need to get a diagnosis before I can figure out whether I gotta get surgery or cortisone shot or whatever it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have full range of motion? Can you put your arms over your head?
- DHDan Harris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah?
- DHDan Harris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You should try hanging. Have you ever looked into hanging?
- DHDan Harris
This other ... Is this something else crazy you're trying to get me into? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
No, just hanging from your shoulders.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs) This is a dangerous dude to hang out with.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, grabbing onto a bar-
- DHDan Harris
Oh, okay, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and hanging your weight.
- DHDan Harris
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really important for the shoulder joint, and it's something that very few people do on a regular basis.
- DHDan Harris
I don't do it on a regular basis.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, most people don't. And even people that work out don't, and you're constantly compressing your shoulders.
- DHDan Harris
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Compressing it with poor posture, compressing it with stress, exercise, and y- your- your shoulder needs to expand and it- it also needs this- this sensation of hanging your body weight from your hands. It's, like, tremendous for your shoulders.
- DHDan Harris
Yeah. No, I like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Releasing impingements. And there's some doctors, there's one doctor in particular that explored this, see if you can find that guy's name, um, who stopped doing most shoulder surgeries and started putting people on hanging therapy, where he just tells them, you know, at the beginning, "Just have a bar that's not quite above your head so that you can just sort of relax your knees and, you know, if you can't carry all of your weight in your hands, just carry a good percentage of your weight in your hands and try to relax your shoulders." And it releases impingements. It stretches that joint out. The idea is that we came from tree-swinging primates, and that as tree-swinging primates, we're constantly doing that, and that's what the shoulder joint is meant to do. It's meant to articulate in that way. We grab something-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... swing, and- and then not having this full range of motion and not using it on a regular basis ... Here- here's this guy's book. Um, Dr. John Kirsch, John M. Kirsch. And, um, he came up with this many years ago when he realized that one of the- the things that was messing people up was just, they just, their joints weren't being put through the full range of motion, and that by hanging, you could release a tremendous amount of the pain and, uh, un- discomfort that a lot of people are facing.
- DHDan Harris
That makes a ton of sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
So ...
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
You ... It seems to me that you guys are actually saying, talking about the same thing. When you're talking about the mind and you're talking about the body and talking about impingements, and you're talking about where your mind is limited, I think it's the same exact dynamic, actually, that's- of what's going on. Like, how would you define what an impingement is in the body?
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, a blockade. You know, like, I- I would say lack of range of motion, um, poor exercise habits. There's a- a- a variety of factors. Ignoring potential injuries and then restricting your motion to the point where everything sorta tightens up. Muscle tissue in particular, um, joint tissue, like around the shoulders and ... Any- any time where you're- you're dealing with range of motion issues, you have to stretch. And you're- most people very rarely stretch their shoulders.
- 14:07 – 18:59
Psychedelics in the tank: surrender, ‘bad trips,’ and why Joe seeks extreme stress
- DHDan Harris
But if you don't mind, would you say more ab- about that? Like, c- because you, you're able to get in the tank not only regularly, but you'll, you'll dose yourself with some stuff-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... before you get in the tank.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, ha, the, the, the thing about stressful situations is, uh, you're always trying to... Once you get comfortable, you're always trying to push them and make them more stressful. And this most, the stress- most stressful way to experience the tank is either edibles or mushrooms. Those are the two for me.
- DHDan Harris
Mushrooms?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
Wow!
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, it's just, it's basically mushrooms without any of the distractions of your body. And then also-
- DHDan Harris
Right. So it's, it's distilled-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DHDan Harris
... psychedelia.
- JWJeff Warren
It's a pure culture.
- DHDan Harris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's like, it's-
- JWJeff Warren
Pure culture mushrooms.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, but, but edibles can be just as potent in there. Edible marijuana is-
- DHDan Harris
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You, do you know the difference? Um, most people aren't aware that it's a completely different psychoactive substance when it's, when you eat it because it's processed by your liver and your body produces something called 11-hydroxy metabolite that's, uh, four to five times more psychoactive than THC. And it's not psychoactive in the smoking version. It's very different.
- DHDan Harris
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's why a lot of people when they eat brownies-
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah, they eat... It's so strong.
- DHDan Harris
Freak out at the end. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JWJeff Warren
You always... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm sure you... There's a famous 9/11 case where, uh, there's an audio recording of these, uh, cops that took some pot from some kids and made pot brownies of it and then ate it, and then called the police and called 911 on themselves-
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... because they thought they were dying, but it is one of the greatest audio recordings of all time.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
The guy... He's a cop and he's like-
- JWJeff Warren
That is awesome.
- 18:59 – 25:02
Retreat terrain: dark stages, equanimity, and Dan’s ‘life review’ shame flood
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah. You're not even ta- you don't, you don't need to ingest anything for all that stuff to start coming up. I mean, there's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- JWJeff Warren
... In fact, there's a kinda classic, um, there's a classic progression in a retreat or a- and even in a sit, you could say, there's sort of these terrains you move through, where first you're just trying to get going and then you're kinda having all these breakthroughs and insights. And then you can get into this really challenging stage where it's like you can't meditate, all your dark stuff is coming up. Sometimes I think of it as, like, um, you're exfoliating the brain, you know? You just exfoliate, exfoliate, and all of a sudden you hit an air pocket of some old school shit-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
... like your old shame and your rage and your childish petulance and-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
... and it all comes bubbling up-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
... and you're inside this atmosphere. And then from inside that atmosphere, you're seeing everything through that filter. You're now seeing how everything sucks and your life's a catastrophe or whatever. And that's- and just like you were saying about the body and about the psychedelics and about the tank, you gotta learn to be, uh, okay with your own uncomfortableness.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JWJeff Warren
You gotta learn to be okay to sit inside this discomfort and say ... actually to welcome it, to say, "Well, this is just part of what's going on with me right now." And if you can do that without resistance, like you were saying, without fighting with, with it, then it can actually work its way out, and then you can get into this really beautiful stage of a, of a practice where it's, you know, the equanimity stage, they call it, where it's just you're really open and available to things, you're super present. It's not exotic. You're not in some peak experience, like where you're, you know, melting in oneness and having energy shooting up your spine. But neither are you in one of these, you know, low experiences. You're just in the ... it's like the beautiful ordinary, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
And those, those ... and you go around and round in those cycles. And then it's from actually that beautiful ordinary place that you can have these breakthroughs. That's the kinda classic place where people have these shifts, you know? They have, like, a no self-experience or ... uh, it's pretty interesting, and the phenomenology of it is really cool. Like there's, you know, people describe very specific kinds of things happening that drop them into this next level of ki- or next progression of insight, you could say.
- DHDan Harris
I don't, I don't wanna overstate (clears throat) my m- meditative capacities, but, um, I had a, I would say, probably like a JV version of what you're describing. La- uh, last month, just a few weeks ago, I was on a 10-day silent meditation retreat, and I could see ... as you describe this, this progression, I could see in hindsight that that was what I went through. So, as your mind starts to settle and you get more concentrated, there are fireworks, you know? You ... the, the, the ... you get a lot of sensations in your body that feel really good. You're seeing things behind your eyes, um, uh, just ... the mind releases a lot of dopamine in ... and serotonin in response to the reduced chatter that can happen when you're more focused on what's happening right now as opposed to caught up, uh, being caught up in the, in (sighs) you know, our egoic chatter. Um, and I ... at one point, though, uh, I, I hit a stage that's sometimes referred to as life review, where I, I just ... all the things I'm most ashamed of just started coming up.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's right.
- DHDan Harris
And I, I couldn't avoid them, I couldn't sleep-
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... and it was all just right there. I was just thinking about them. And, and then I started questioning the whole practice and, "What am I doing here? Is this a waste of time?" And I had a conversation with my teacher, who was a brilliant individual. I mean, you could argue, um ... some have argued and I, I would agree, that one of the greatest living meditation teachers. Uh, his name is Joseph Goldstein, and he's, he's not a, a ... he doesn't walk around in robes or anything like that. He's a Jewish guy from the Catskills, and, uh, he's in his 70s. And he would ... I was staying in he- in a cabin, and he would pop in and see me in his cabin every once in a while 'cause it was right near his house. And he ... one day, I, I was kinda complaining a lot about th- the futility of my practice, and he said, "Surrender." He said, "You gotta surrender. You gotta just sto- you know, just stop getting in your head about are you doing it right and all that stuff. Just let the practice do its thing." As Jeff sometimes talks about it, it's like, "Let time and nature do its work. Just trust that the practice is ... we've been doing this for millennia, human beings. There's a reason for that. Just do the practice, stop worrying about it." And the next sit I had was this kind of equanimity thing that you're talking about, where I could s- it was two hours long. I could see everything coming up, all of my urges, desires, thoughts, physical sensations, things I was hearing, things I was seeing. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. 'Cause I was very focused by this point. It's all just coming at me, and I'm not reaching for it and I'm not pushing it away, the unpleasant stuff, I'm not trying to push it away. I'm not trying to grasp onto the pleasant, and it's just whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
- JWJeff Warren
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
And it's some- it's like this incredible video game, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DHDan Harris
Uh, where you can't ... I sometimes describe meditation as like a video game, where you can't move forward if you want to move forward.
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah, it's the anti-video game.
- DHDan Harris
And once you stop wanting, once you just surrender into this thing where you're just-
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... non-judgmentally observing whatever comes up in your mind, whether it's fear, whether it's planning lunch, whatever it is, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, you just ... you get to start to move forward. And then the ego comes in and tells you, "You are the best meditator ever, dude."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 25:02 – 31:59
Onion layers, momentum, and remapping consciousness like retraining bad technique
- JRJoe Rogan
Puh, wow. There's so much there. Um, there's this experience that you have in the tank where you, you try to let go, and you let go and relax, and then you realize, no, you just-
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's one layer of relaxation-
- JWJeff Warren
Totally.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but they're stacked on top of each other, there's infinite layers. And as you get deeper and deeper into these layers of relaxation-
- JWJeff Warren
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you hit another layer and you go, "Okay, now this is relaxing." And then, you know, "Nope, there's way more than this."
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"There's way more to this." And, uh, the more you think about the fact that, "Oh, now I'm on a new level of relaxation," well, now you're not. Now you're probably two or three levels above where you were before you addressed it. (coughs)
- JWJeff Warren
That's the exfoliation you were talking about.
- JRJoe Rogan
It just, it, it's almost like the layers of the onion, and just you have to peel those layers. Dude, you're blowing my mind. Yeah. Oh, this is all the shit that I always talk about. It's exactly, you're describing exactly... It's the layers of the onion, you, it's like you, you're, you're holding this fist, and you don't even realize you're holding this fist. You're walking around going, "Yeah, everything's fine," but you're holding this fist, and then you realize you're holding it so tight, and then you, first you don't even know how to open the fist- Yeah.
- JWJeff Warren
... 'cause it's been closed the whole time. At some point, without, you have to, the way you open it is not trying to open it. You have to just be so okay with the fact that you have this tight fist here, that eventually it just opens of itself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
And then you think you're free, and I think of it like, I describe it as, like, walking the onion, you know? It's like you're walking on top of the onion and your n- it's imagine the planet is an onion, you're walking and you're turning the onion as you walk, and you got the huge open air all around you, you got the universe, you feel like you're free. But very slowly, you're sinking into the onion, there's a layer of tension is kind of appearing or coagulation that starts to kind of coagulate in your experience, and eventually you realize that there's this layer of tension here, and you're not free, you're inside this thing, and then you have to figure out how to exfoliate that or let that go. And it just keeps going on, 'cause it's turtles all the way down, it's like it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- JWJeff Warren
... onion af- layer after onion layer, and every time you get into a new place of freedom, the fact and the act of living is creating more coagulation, it's creating more, uh, just natural frictions and things that are coming up. So it's not just that you're going through... So the, the, the progress of insight, the progress of what they call purification in Buddhism is a, is a, a process of kind of working through your conditioning, but also simultaneously learning to work through the, the new conditioning that's accreting, uh, by virtue of just being a human being. And that's, that's the game, and that's why a lot of people say there is no end to it, you don't get to some final liberation because just the act of living is creating its own blind spots. You know? So you've got different people in different camps who argue different things about what real freedom looks like, but that, that to me seems the most realistic, you know? At least it's the one it, it that fits with my experience and it describes exactly how you describe it, you know? The two are, they really line up.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think most of us are operating on momentum.
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think you, you learn things as a child and those become, you know, whatever your personality is, the way, whether, whatever, uh, thought process you sort of have carved into your mind, like the grooves and patterns that you normally find yourself thinking in, and I equate it to a lot to martial arts training. Like, I, uh, I used to teach martial arts for a living, and one of the things that I found incredibly difficult was to reteach people.
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was way easier to teach a person with no training than it was to reteach someone with poor training.
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when someone has poor training-
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they have these paths carved in their movements and their thought process, and when they're in a situation, they fall back on those patterns, and it's extremely-
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... difficult to get people out of that and learn to do things correctly.
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But if you can teach them how to do things correctly from the beginning, then they naturally grit... Like, this is the stressful situation, here comes the problem, here's the i- the issue, what's the technique? Now you know it, and it's, it's locked into your brain. You know the right pathway.
- JWJeff Warren
Mm-hmm.
- 31:59 – 37:04
Translating practice into life: running, SoulCycle, language that lands, and sincerity
- DHDan Harris
Do you think most people know how to translate what they're learning in something like... So c- because for me, the, what, what broke through about meditation was it was so obvious how to translate what I was learning-
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... with my eyes closed to my life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DHDan Harris
Whereas, all the other things, you know, I've been r- I'd been running since I was in my teens, and, and while I, it's absolutely good at staving off depression, which I've dealt with (laughs) for a long time, and, uh, and making me feel just g- generally fit, uh, I don't know that I was explicitly taking the lessons of running or any of the other things that many people do that they sometimes refer to as their "meditation"-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... and applying it to my life the way meditation was, again, so obvious.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it seemed like the m- the obvious aspects of meditation are conscious, like you're, you're looking for these solutions. Whereas with running, you might be getting them without being conscious of them.
- DHDan Harris
Yes.
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or at least getting some of the benefits of it without being conscious.
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But those benefits would certainly be enhanced with a, a different perspective going into the running. Like, going into the running with the, the thought process of testing your consciousness-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to endure this very difficult thing in front of you, like hill running in particular. Um, there's, there's something about anything that's like very uniquely physically stressful like that, which requires the mind to stay the course. And in doing so, especially on the other end, once you come out of it, there's this great feeling of euphoria and peace. And it's n- not just a physical release of energy, but it's also an understanding-
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that the brain has exorcized the demons that are responsible for the anxiety while you're overcoming this stressful-
- DHDan Harris
And the limits you told yourself were there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
It's funny, you know, my, my, my wife and I have been doing a lot of SoulCycle, which I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
My wife does it too.
- DHDan Harris
Okay. So, but you don't do it w-
- JRJoe Rogan
She starts trying to talk me into it.
- DHDan Harris
... you don't do it with her, but I, I do-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have other shit to do. (laughs)
- DHDan Harris
... 'cause I'm a better-
- JWJeff Warren
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
... I'm a better husband that Joe Rogan. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
... uh, so although-
- 37:04 – 52:48
Chappelle, Comedy Central pressure, and why true freedom looks like walking away
- DHDan Harris
Well, we, we talk a lot about, um ... So my favorite comedian of all time, other than Joe Rogan, um, is Dave Chappelle. And you, uh, you came on my radar screen because you were on his show, uh, The Chappelle Show, back in the day, and the fear factor bit he did years and years ago, which was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Uh, and Chappelle, in one of the seasons, uh, Jeff and I were talking about this last night as a matter of fact, talked about, um, how ... Uh, he was doing one of these outtake episodes. I can't remember which season it was in because he only did two and a half. Um, he was doing an outtake episode, and at the beginning he did a riff about how, uh, back in the day African American communities never got the good part of the pig to eat. The white people got the good parts of the pig. So, uh, the African Americans had to figure out how to make good food out of snout. And that's, he said, what this episode is gonna be. "We're gonna take the snout and we're gonna make good stuff out of it." And my approach to writing books about meditation is, the snout is the good stuff. The embarrassing shit that happens to you when you're medit- when you're meditating is the good stuff, and it is what will allow people to see-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DHDan Harris
... what the practice does for you. So I take the worst, most embarrassing stuff that happens and talk about it, because that is ... gives you a front row seat at what training the mind actually looks like. And if you can't have a sense of humor about how crazy you are-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DHDan Harris
... you are truly fucked.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) No shit. I, I agree. Well said, well said. I, I think that those uncomfortable moments are so important for other people to hear about too.
- DHDan Harris
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DHDan Harris
Yes. Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
We need to know we're not alone-
- DHDan Harris
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. ... in all our madness. Yeah. What was it like on the set when you were working with Dave Chappelle? Yeah. It was great. Well, I've known Dave for a long time. I was actually on the very first episode. We, uh ... By chance. I was walking through New York and, uh, I saw Dave. And he ... This was before the show had even been th- I didn't even know it existed. But I ran into Bobcat Goldthwait, who was there, and I'm like, "What's up, man? What are you guys doing?" He's like, he goes, "Oh, hey, Joe. We're doing a TV sketch, man. You wanna be in on it?"
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And I go, "I only have like 20 minutes. I'm on my way to a meeting." (laughs) He goes, "Here." He goes, "We're handing out ribbons for New York boobs."
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And he, uh, he had a box. So it's me and him walking through Manhattan, and he's got this crazy fake mustache on. (laughs) He's like, "You've got the best New York boobs," and he would give someone like a ribbon for having New York boobs. (laughs) And it was really silly, but fun. Yeah. And so I was like, "Wow, Dave's got a show." And then, you know, turns out it's the greatest sketch show in the history of the world. Mm-hmm. And a year later, he calls me up again and asks me to do this thing for, uh ... He wanted to do a Fear Factor sketch with Tyrone Biggums. Yeah, so that's me and him. Fresh faced Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle.
- DHDan Harris
Look at you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, this is like ... What year is this? Like 2000?
- DHDan Harris
That's 2003, 4? Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's before that.
- DHDan Harris
Is it?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's before that. I wanna say it's 2, 2002.
- DHDan Harris
Maybe, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because, uh, I wasn't even doing The Man Show back then, and I was doing that in 2003. So I think it's 2002.
- DHDan Harris
Uh, the Fear Factor bit is one of my favorite. That's in season two, if I recall.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think so, yeah.
- DHDan Harris
And, uh, is really one of the funniest.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's hilarious.
- DHDan Harris
One of the funniest bits in a show that is, I would argue, perhaps the greatest television show of all time.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's the greatest sketch comedy show of all time.
- 52:48 – 1:08:18
Zen bounce and Shinzen Young: training spontaneity, energy, and ‘centerlessness’
- JWJeff Warren
Actually, can I... There's a-
- DHDan Harris
Of course.
- JWJeff Warren
... um, uh, so I got a teacher, this guy Shizen Young, who I think is the- the fucking bomb. You've gotta get him on the show.
- DHDan Harris
He's amazing.
- JWJeff Warren
He's incredible.
- DHDan Harris
He's a, he is truly amazing.
- JWJeff Warren
He's a super nerd of consciousness, um, and he is really articulate about the dynamics. And he's trained a lot within the Zen tradition, but also in kind of old school Theravada, like, the more strict-
- JRJoe Rogan
How do I say his name? I'm gonna write it down.
- JWJeff Warren
Shizen. S-H-I-Z-E-N.
- DHDan Harris
Zed. Canadian, sorry.
- JWJeff Warren
Z-E-N, Shizen Young. And he actually likes-
- DHDan Harris
Young? Young?
- JWJeff Warren
... mixed martial arts and he guides people while watching mixed martial arts in his undershirt, and he's the, he's a wicked dude.
- DHDan Harris
Yeah, I- I- I can fully second that.
- JWJeff Warren
Yeah, so he, uh, but he talks a lot about something called the Zen bounce 'cause he's, he's interested in how, like, how, you know, how do these different practices from different traditions work? Like, how do they... What is the way in which they free you or they reduce your suffering? And, and 'cause they can look so different on paper or actually in experience. So, you might have one kind of meditation tradition that's all about just sitting with your eyes closed, not moving, all about that kind of stoicism, and then you, when you do move, it's very slow and deliberate and you gotta be mindful and all that stuff. But then you have other traditions, like within a certain kinds of Zen schools, where you're actually... If you... It's frenetic. It's like, go, go, go all the time. You're moving fast. You're like unwrapping your shit and you're putting your shit back together, and you're eating your food in a particular kind of way, and you gotta get to this thing over here, and you gotta get to this thing over here. And then you gotta sit and you just stop on a dime. And what they're doing is they're deliberately...... shaking things up. They're deliberately creating all this agitated e- energy to teach you how to ride the energy, to teach you how to be calm enough in the center that you can ... That, that energy turns into spontaneity, turns into creativity, turns into genuine being available in the momentness, as opposed to being stuck in some way. That's what's getting trained. And when you see these guys from those monasteries or from those traditions who are really ... who've practiced a lot, they've got this bouncy, available, turn-on-a-dime, do this. You know, it's like they're just available to what's going on because they've trained that quality in their experience.
- DHDan Harris
They've gotten out of their own way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
They've gotten out of their own way. I mean, and they would ... I mean, Shinzen, when you talk to how he is, he ... You know, I've had like hundreds of hours of discussions where I'll call him up. I'll be like ... And he ... The best thing about him is he'll answer the phone. If he's ready to talk, he's ready to serve, you know, whatever you got goin' on. I'll be like ... I'll call him in the morning, "Shinzen, so what's goin' on right now? What's your experience of consciousness?" And he basically describes ... You know, it's like he's just there and it's like he's this sort of part of this upwelling of the world, and it's all kind of vibrating up through him. He has no center. You know, if you ask him where his center ... he th- experiences the center of himself, sometimes it's over here.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
Sometimes it's over on the right.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
So he's just like, "Yeah." It's just, it's all reality, just kind of this free flow of reality that he's just responding to. Now ... And then, and then he'll tell me ... This is the shit that w- blow my mind 'cause you're like, "Okay, that sounds awesome." But he's like, "No, there's challenges." For him, the challenges is taking conditions seriously, taking condition seriously. He has to convince himself that when a ... you know, that the stakes are enough that he should work on this thing, or that, "Yeah, I guess I should get outta the way of that bus."
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
You know, it's like... I mean, and he will 'cause his instincts kick in, but it's like he's so in the uncondition that, you know, he, his danger is just becoming one of those dudes sitting on a mountain not doing anything. But the world is fucked and it needs people like him who can help, help us out. So he, he ... And he's very inspired to, to, to try to do his best to be a great meditation teacher, but that's his battle. He's no longer ... Uh, so most practitioners, their battle is trying to get to taste that more unconditioned quality, the, that spontaneous, that free, the yourself as just a process. Uh, his is the other direction. He's gone so far into that now he's trying to remember what it was like to be a human being.
- DHDan Harris
Mm-hmm.
- JWJeff Warren
He's more like a cosmic rock.
- DHDan Harris
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
Like, just vibrating into infinity all the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JWJeff Warren
Which is, you know, great for stress but not so great for maybe other things. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah.
- 1:08:18 – 1:41:00
Compassion without preciousness: Western traditions, ‘spiritual’ signaling, and real service
- JWJeff Warren
I mean, o- one of the points that Sam Harris, a mutual friend of ours, great podcaster, great writer, has made, uh, in his book, Waking Up, which was one of his many books, but I, I think my favorite, is that, you know, i- i- th- in the West, we've developed an intellectual and scientific culture that is really robust and has changed the world and is, uh, uh, in- unquestionably valuable. But in the East, they actually were working on the owner's manual for the mind. Mm. For millennia. You know, you've got two Buddha statues in here. 2,600 years ago, this guy, if he even existed or wha- what ... we don't, we don't know, but this culture of Buddhism, and before that, the Hindus, were working on how do you operate this mind? What is this mind? And, uh, I think the beautiful thing we're watching now globally, this trend, is the meeting of these two things. And Jeff is one of the people who's most excited about this. It's partly why we're such good friends. The meeting of this Western scientific rational culture and this Eastern exploration of the mind. But, bro, l- I, I wanna just call you on something. Like, I think, I think that's absolutely true, but I also think these, the, these un- this understanding, this way of thinking about it, is there in the West as well. That it's like th- the East has made it explicit in very particular ways, but even within humanistic traditions, if you look at, like, the, some of the Greek philosophers who a lot of them were really mystics, if you look within the Abrahamic traditions, there are ... these understandings are there as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's true.
- JWJeff Warren
And they're describing it in similar ways. And, like, you hang out with some badass Catholic priest who spent his entire life, like, in poor neighborhoods helping people out and, like, totally being present and working on service. And, uh, like, the way in which that human being, like, has learned how to survive and has learned how to flourish and has learned how to be present for his community or her community, it's a lot of the same skills. And the, not ... there's obviously shadowy aspects everywhere too, but, you know, these are human universals.
Episode duration: 2:30:26
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