10% Happier with Dan Harris Folgen

In this episode, we're talking about the difference between kindness and what our guest, La Sarmiento, calls "radical kindness," how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries, the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call "idiot compassion," and their experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming. Sarmiento, whose pronouns are they/them, has been practicing Vipassana meditation since the 1990's. They are a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program and a mentor in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. They serve as the guiding teacher for the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ sanghas at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, where they are also board president. We are bringing you this Ten Percent Happier podcast series in collaboration with the Apple TV+ Original Series Ted Lasso because kindness is a huge theme in the show, and there are many practical lessons embedded right in the plot. CTA: Watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions. Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/la-sarmiento-376

In this episode we're talking about how what you believe— about yourself, or about the world — can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you believe the world is a cold and unforgiving place, it can become that way. And if you believe that you have limited capacities for kindness, you can, in effect, make it so. Our guest is Jamil Zaki, who is making his second appearance here on the show. Jamil is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. He is a leading expert on empathy and the author of the book The War for Kindness. Jamil discusses three levels of kindness: kindness toward ourselves, kindness in our close relationships, and kindness in our communities. He argues that starting with the self is critical, but also that the kinder we can make our communities, the kinder we will be ourselves. And the more we reorient ourselves to focus on the positive, the more we can create a self-fulfilling prophecy of kindness. We are bringing you this Ten Percent Happier podcast series in collaboration with the Apple TV+ Original Series Ted Lasso because kindness is a huge theme in the show, and there are many practical lessons embedded right in the plot. Watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions. To sign up for the Ted Lasso Challenge, download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jamil-zaki-375

Here's a question: Is there an evolutionary advantage to being kind?  Our guest today is Dacher Keltner, an eminent scientist who will make the case that, contrary to popular conceptions of evolution (dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest), and contrary to a lot of what we see on the news, our species is actually uniquely wired for kindness and compassion. Dacher Keltner is the Director of the Social Interaction Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, the Faculty Director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, and the author of the book Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.  In this episode, we talk about Darwin's perspective on human sympathy and selfishness, where he stands on the question of Original Sin versus Buddha Nature, the importance of touch when it comes to communicating compassion, and the relationship between teasing and kindness.  We are bringing you this Ten Percent Happier podcast series in collaboration with the Apple TV+ Original Series Ted Lasso because kindness is a huge theme in the show, and there are many practical lessons embedded right in the plot. Watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. Subscription required. Apple TV+ and/or select content may not be available in all regions. Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dacher-keltner-374