You Can't Hate Yourself Into Becoming a Better Person | Vinny Ferraro

0:04This is the 10 % Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

0:18Hey, hey, how we doing? Okay, here's the deal. I'm just going to give it to you straight. We all have demons. The question is, are you going to find a way to work with your difficult parts? the difficult aspects of your inner repertoire, or are you going to let your demons own you? Your call. That's up to you. Today, you're going to hear from a guy who has learned this lesson the hard way and in the process has become a beloved Buddhist teacher. Vinny Ferraro leads the Big Heart City Sangha, which is part of the insight meditation tradition. He's also our teacher of the month over on danharris.com, which means he'll be producing guided meditations throughout September to go with all of our Monday, Wednesday episodes.

0:58The idea is that you can listen to the episode, learn a ton, and then Vinny will help you, as I like to say, pound the wisdom into your neurons with a guided meditation. These meditations are only for paid subscribers over at danharris.com. Paid subscribers also now get weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions. I had been doing these intermittently, but now we're going to systematize and do them every week, every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. So you can put that shit in your calendar. The next one is Tuesday, September 2nd. It will feature both me and Vinny. Okay, so that brings me to today's episode.

1:29It's a brief interview between Vinny and my executive producer, DJ Kashmir. And in this conversation, you'll hear Vinny talk about his extraordinary life story, how he came to meditation after a truly chaotic adolescence, and much more. Please enjoy. Hey, it's Dan. I just want to tell you about something I'm really proud of, the new community we are building over on my new app, which is called 10 % with Dan Harris. Here's something I believe with no reservation. Taking care of your own mind is not selfish. It's actually essential if you want to show up for the world, if you want to deal with the various emergencies on the planet right now.

2:06There is, in fact, a geopolitical case for you to get your shit together. In other words, taking care of your own mind is good citizenship. I think about it like an upward spiral. You train your mind, That makes you happier and less reactive because you're steadier. That improves your relationships with everybody around you. And because relationships are crucial to human happiness, you get even happier. Then your relationships get even better and up you go. Our mission over at this new app is to guide you through this process with a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers like Seben A.

2:38Selassie and Joseph Goldstein and on and on. Also, add free access to our full podcast archive, exclusive live stream events where we guide meditations and take your questions. We do those every week and much more. Head on over to danharris.com. You can try it for two weeks free. And if you cannot afford a subscription, we'll give you one, no questions asked. I've been very open about the fact that I come by my specific money neuroses, honestly. So I've found some tools that have really helped me reorient to my personal finances in a healthier and sane way. So I'm passing on better lessons to my own son.

3:16And one tool that is really helpful is something called Monarch, which does many, many things. But one of the things that it does that I really like is put all of your financial information in one place. So if I'm spiraling for one reason or another, I can just look at this dashboard and get a clear sense of what's going on. And very often it just calms my nervous system. Most apps only tell you what you've spent. Monarch helps you set goals, map out big purchases and see if you're already on track before it's too late to adjust. You can ask Monarch's AI assistant anything about your finances, like how much did I spend on travel last summer?

3:52Or can I afford this vacation without touching my savings? write your own money story with Monarch. I told you mine. You can write your own with Monarch. Use code HAPPIER at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with the code HAPPIER.

4:18Vinny Ferraro, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. Good to see you, DJ. It's so good to see you. I've been looking forward to this for a minute now. Let's dive right in. Been asking everyone the same question, so I'll put it to you. When we think about the story of how you became a meditation teacher, what is that story? Where should we start? Yeah, I guess a little boy trying to accommodate reality. You know, there's a lot to accommodate in my young life. Complicated house, lots of yelling and lots of fear in my body. You know, and so I was kind of like the quiet kid because I was slightly walking on eggshells, I would say.

5:04Yeah. And, you know, as you get older, you know, the stakes increase. The dangerous behaviors start coming out. And by the time I was maybe 10 years old, I was on probation. You know, I was a juvenile delinquent and they had all these words for kids like us, you know. They would group us together no matter what our houses looked like. The behavior that they were seeing was worrisome. Yeah. Yeah, as a teenager, you know, like I said, the stakes continued to increase. So now it was hard for me to bear my own presence. You know, I had so many feelings going on inside me. I would say I was a sensitive kid, but I wasn't raised in a sensitive world or in a sensitive home.

5:57So there wasn't a lot of room for that. So I ended up medicating a lot, mostly through, you know, drinking and drugs, but some of it through dangerous behaviors and finding any escape from my world became my world. Yeah. Yeah. That just complicated things because then I was in this cycle of doing things I wasn't proud of, feeling bad about that as a sensitive person, and then needing to get away from that feeling again. So it was like a loop that I was caught in doing things I wasn't proud of, feeling ashamed, not being able to bear that feeling and doing more things I wasn't proud of. So it just kept like escalating into felonies, into me calling my mom or dad from the police department, you know, and having another charge and another court date and another three years probation and it just kind of continued like this yeah yeah so I had a lot to get away from internally then maybe by the time I was 20 years old things had shifted for me I had hit another bottom you know I didn't know that I had another bottom in me but I kept finding new bottoms and And it was just like, wow, man, something has to change here.

7:31Yeah, I think I was about 110 pounds at 20 years old. Yeah, truthfully, it was the hardest point in my life. And I felt, okay, I'm willing to try anything. and that's when something shifted and my pops ended up coming and finding me and bringing me to a 12-step meeting. And that really changed my life. I wasn't sure why I was going down the stairs of this church basement and it was moist and dank and I saw lots of people milling around and hugging. you know it's just like what the hell is this you know has it really come to this you know what I mean like I had so much judgment because I just wasn't used to seeing people show love like that yeah and I saw some people I knew from the street and I was like bro I thought you were locked up I didn't know where you been and he's like bro I've been sober and I'm like holy shit okay all what are y 'all doing here?

8:45You know, and they, they introduced me to that culture and I said, okay, I'll try, you know, and I went home and I flushed my little package down the toilet. And I, you know, I went to a meeting every day for at least a couple of years, you know, and I made coffee and I swept and I was a door greeter and all these different positions. And I just felt like, okay, I'm going to really give this an honest shot because there wasn't anything else. I had to live for. You know what I mean? It didn't feel like there was any other way I could continue doing what I was doing. So it was out of desperation.

9:23You know, I'm reading these books, you know, the 12-step books, and they talked about through prayer and meditation. And I was like, through prayer and meditation? What is that word? What does that mean? You know what I mean? And I didn't have any concept of what that word actually meant. All I knew was the TV version from David Carradine in Kung Fu. And you know what I mean? Like that kind of like exoticism. And it was like, let me find out what this is. And I started like buying some books and this is, you know, the early nineties. And soon I needed to just get out of my neighborhood just because even though I was sober, I didn't see anything that I wanted to be.

10:10You know, everybody I knew were kind of like criminals and outlaws and still in the game. And I just felt like, okay, I got to get out of here. I got to just go drive across the country or something crazy like that. And so I jumped in my state trooper car. I had a used state trooper car and I had a Harley and I put it on a trailer and I drove out to California with a really good friend of mine. And we ended up landing in Santa Cruz. And I was like, wow, I'd never seen surfers and Dayglo and dolphins jumping out of the water. And I was just like, what the hell? I felt so far from my neighborhood.

10:51I didn't recognize anything. I was like, this looks perfect. And basically, landing here in Santa Cruz in 1990, I met some folks that were involved in the Dharma, involved in meditation. And I started meditating. Yeah, in 92, 93, I started getting more serious about it. And by 95, I felt like, okay, this is what I'm into. This is really where I want to go with my life. And that was a pivot point in my life that changed everything. Everything that came after that was due to that decision. It was a long decision. Like I said, it was over a couple of years that I was kicking tires in different meditation circles.

11:36And really what we wanted to do more than anything else was to bring the tools of meditation to people that were suffering in the ways that we understood. The suffering of being homeless or strung out or in jail. Like that's the kind of suffering we knew about. So that's what really spoke to my heart was like, okay, how do we translate this to this demographic? Because that's the world I know. That became very exciting, bringing this to people that needed it the most. Yeah. would it be right to say that meditation was so transformational for you that you then felt like you had no other choice but to to pass that on yeah yeah i think that's fair to say you know when you find something that actually helps right and you know the pain of the suffering and then you're feeling some sort of relief of course you want to share that with the world to tell you the truth i'll give you a little confession man this is a strange moment but i don't know evangelical is not the right word but i was so excited about the practice that some of my older friends from the neighborhood were calling me vinnie swagger instead of jimmy swagger because they were just like dude you were the worst of us And now you're like standing at this pulpit.

13:09And I was like, yeah, bro, I can't tell you what this transformation has done for me, like internally, you know? And so, yeah, it was pretty exciting to share it with people that knew not only where I came from, but people that knew about that life, you know, and know the suffering within it. Yeah. It sounds like if I'm hearing you right, the first thing that really helped you dig out was finding this 12-step meeting. And then meditation came along and helped you access something even beyond what you've been able to access in the 12-step meeting. Am I hearing that right? And if so, can you say a little more about it?

13:57Yeah, you know, there was a line in that big book of AA that said, you know, spirituality was the cornerstone of our recovery. And I was just like, okay, I'm interested in this thing. Okay, spirituality, meditation. But what does that actually mean? You know what I mean? Like, I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up, you know, in that religious way. So I didn't really know what those words meant. But I was around people that were spacious enough to let me figure it out for myself. Like I said, I was kicking a lot of tires in these different spiritual circles. You know, I was chanting with the Hare Krishnas.

14:40I went and sat with the Jesuit priests. And I, you know, I went to all these different kind of Sufi gatherings. And I was just like trying to find what resonated with my heart. And I could find some little pieces in each one of these. And then when I came to meditation, and in particular, the Buddha Dharma, it was like, oh, this is firing on all cylinders. This is a complete path for me. There's nothing here that I have to swallow that doesn't resonate with my heart. And I think it was because there's so much structure to it. You know, the Eightfold Path, all these different ways of understanding how to live in a way that felt whole and not just trying to be good or trying to be anything in particular beside whole.

15:31So finally, there was enough room for all these different parts of me. And so that's what meditation represented for me. It's like, okay, finally, there's enough space for all of you. You talked about realizing you needed to get out of the neighborhood, you know, driving 3 ,000 miles and seeing dolphins, seeking all these different paths. I guess it raises a question for me of like, in that time, were you running from something? And if so, are you still running? I think I was still kind of on the move. You know, I still held this kind of belief that I was fundamentally broken or flawed. Yeah, that followed me.

16:23Yeah, probably into my 30s. That feeling or that doubt, you know, of my own wholeness or goodness. And then you start learning more about the Dharma and Mara. These negative aspects, or at least for me, I stopped taking it so personally. Like it was some personal failing that I had these fears or this anger or whatever it was, right? I could understand it through the lens of Mara a lot easier than trying to figure out, okay, why do I feel this way and why do I want to do these things? Or, you know, taking life very personally was a huge part of my suffering. Why am I like this? As though I didn't come by it honestly, you know, naturally.

17:13Right? Yeah. So if Mara is, you know, from the ancient Buddhist texts, it's this sort of demon haunting the thoughts of the Buddha, right? Even after the Buddha becomes enlightened and we all have our versions of this, our fears, our anxieties, our hatreds, our greed. And it sounds like if I'm hearing you right, It was sort of like when you first started to really look into meditation, it felt like maybe this is a place where I can be whole, where no part of me has to be left out or disavowed. But even after that, it still took a while to really understand one of these core teachings, which is just this idea that these things that are haunting us are not ours.

17:56They're not unique to us. We didn't create them. We didn't ask for them. They don't say something about our innate worth. Like that whole, and I guess I'm relating to that in the sense that I too, when I came to meditation and went on my first retreat, it started in part because I had also been looking at different paths and it felt like the only one where there wasn't too much to push back against. But it certainly was not an overnight sense of like, okay, I went on my first retreat and now I don't have to hate myself anymore. That's still a work in progress. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm probably a slow learner and a quick forgetter because it took me at least 10 years to realize that I can't hate myself into becoming a better person.

18:44It just is not going to work. If it was going to work, it would have already. You know what I mean? So it took me a while of meditating and sitting these kind of long retreats and many hours of just wrestling with these internal energies. you know and i like your mara as an acronym like mind appearing real again you know and it's just like over and over you you start waking up to these energies that are just coursing through my body and i was like wow this is really helpful to to give it a name and to understand it's not mine and have space for it. And now I can see that, you know, I started to see then that there was two aspects that dictated my experience.

19:34One is like, how did I respond to the presence of these energies? And then what do I align myself with, right? Do I align myself? Am I attached to that identity or that energy? And then where does that lead? And that kind of leads to, you know, more Mara, more of that energy. But when I responded to that energy with some heart quality, some care, some sort of, yeah, care is the best word I have for it. But yeah, can I care for this feeling that's hard to bear without making it mine, without taking it personally, without disavowing it, as you said? But can I just be here as like an empathetic witness to this soft animal of my body that's feeling this way.

20:24And so that was very helpful to me, the heart qualities, to be able to respond and then say, okay, and what do I align myself here with? And I didn't need to align myself a hundred percent with this love or kindness or even compassion. It's just a little bit more than what's being whispered in the shadows. You know, that was a real defining point for me is understanding that Mara doesn't have to disappear. There can be all kinds of space for even doubt to stay there, but what are you going to align yourself with? And it's just a little bit more than what Mara's offering. I mean, you said slow learner, but it strikes me that starting to learn that about 10 years in, I don't know, it could be worse.

21:19Always, always, always, always, you know, but when I think about it, you know, it's like, oh yeah. Okay. So by 95, I'd call myself a Buddhist. Okay. And then how many years did I really kind of like marinate in that feeling and not yet see these obstacles are actually doorways. So it took me a while because all I wanted to do was feel better. And a lot of times, you know, you meditate and it's not that you feel better. It's not, you know, some quick fix. It's, you know, it's not instant like so many medications are, right? Like you can take something and all of a sudden you feel different. Meditation was a much slower path for me.

22:00And because I had this past of always running from myself, I think I was looking for, yeah, a quicker fix, you know? And so it felt like it took a really long time, you know, at least compared to my earlier life. Yeah. But it was way more sustainable, you know, and I wasn't leaving or didn't feel like I was like a path of destruction behind me either. So it became easier to look in the mirror. It became easier to bear my presence. It became easier to share what was going on inside me because it wasn't all my fault. Yeah, yeah. I never heard Mara reimagined as an acronym. You said mind appearing real again.

22:49And I, just to explore that for a moment, I've been watching this happen with my daughter who's about to turn six, there are moments when I will correct her behavior in some way. And if my tone is, you know, somewhere between neutral and loving, and if she's had enough sleep and water and food, and I've had enough sleep and water and food, and the thing that I'm correcting doesn't feel like something I've already said 50 times that day, et cetera. There are conditions where that correction just, it's just the easiest thing in the world. You know, please don't do that. Okay. You know, and then there are other times when not all of those conditions are in place and she just melts, just wilts.

23:38And we've talked about it. And I think what's happening for her in that moment is she's registering the negative input or the critical input or the correction as essentially just a message that she's bad. And of course I can relate to this. So something I've been working on with both her and myself is just this thing of like, that you don't have to believe that thought that you're bad, right? Like all of your feelings are real and valid, but not all of your thoughts are true and helpful. and I've been trying to find ways in my own mind and also in relationship with her to kind of interrupt the cycle of her mind appearing real to her in that moment, you know, because I've just noticed that if I don't do that, it just doesn't take that many instances for her to start to build up a whole story about herself.

24:33And I feel like I'm about to turn 40 in the not too distant future and I'm still trying to unlearn those stories. You know, still trying to wake up to the fact that this is another moment where my mind is appearing real to me. But it's not the same thing as a moment where the story is true. Yeah. Yeah, it's well said, man. Yeah. The 10 years of practice that it took you to start to get to that point. I wonder if part of what was happening was just you're building that skill of waking up, coming back to the breath, waking up, noting what's happening, waking up, waking up, waking up, coming back to the present moment.

25:11And as you start to do that, maybe the tally of moments where the mental note is like self-criticism, self-criticism, self-criticism starts to go up, right? You start to notice what you're doing to yourself and creating some distance between that story and your reality. Yeah. I mean, you definitely begin to see your own contributions to your suffering, right? It's like, oh, part of the path is just taking that ultimate responsibility, right? That says, okay, it's really my response here, right? Not what's arising, right? What's arising is what's arising. Not much influence over that. But how can this be in the service of awakening?

25:55And so when we start asking ourselves that question, no matter what the conditions are, that's when our practice becomes all terrain, right? That's when we could, whether we're walking through a funeral parlor, a prison, a birthing room, it's like, how can this be in the service of awakening becomes a very sturdy way to engage the world and the self in all of these different conditions. It feels unconditional to me, that question, because then it doesn't matter if it's good, if it's bad, if it's just an average day. It's like, okay, and how can this be in the service of awakening? And so that question over and over began to sprout all kinds of beautiful blossoms.

26:43Yeah. So if you're in a moment where you're like really beating yourself up, like I'm going to have to go apologize. Like, damn it. I can't believe I still have a temper after all these years, whatever the story is. When you catch it, is that your immediate next move? Oh, story again. How can that be in the service of awakening? Is that like literally what you're doing in the middle of your afternoon with your kid? Let me see if I can, yeah, come to that moment for a minute and then see how does the heart respond?

27:21I don't have to go too far back. I can tell you that, DJ. I mean, as I was telling that story, I realized I might be projecting slightly, but totally fair for you to say you don't have those moments anymore. But it sounds like that's not where we're at. Yeah, yeah. We could say that.

27:46Yeah, I think it's from the Tao and it says liberated is the soul. which sees all human behavior as either an act of love or a call for love. So sometimes when I'm like in this, you know, I'm moving to the world and something catches my eye or somebody's, I'm frustrated or Val's just, yeah, my son Valentino is just on one. It's like, okay, is this a call for love or an act of love? You know what I mean? And it's like, okay, can, can I meet him in that? What does he really want right now? It's slowing it all down. Sometimes I've crossed the threshold already and I have to go sit with him and hold his hand and look in his eyes and tell him that I'm sorry.

28:36That's a tender place because most of us never got that. Most of us never got that from our parents. So it's like, oh, this is a chance to break a cycle. So instead of doubling down and like getting more angry and him getting more scared or whatever's happening for him, we take a more tender route that says, okay, how can I interrupt this cycle of identification or attachment to my role and say, okay, what's really being called for here? Can I get really tender with this? And I've seen great results in that tenderness. Even if it's just him seeing me, giving him my full attention and calming down, it shows him that we can move through these emotions.

29:31We can always choose a more vulnerable way to be with each other instead of escalating. It's like some kind of power struggle. there's just a tenderness that is very palpable and transformative for both of us yeah yeah and sometimes it you know it doesn't always just work wonders but i know what i'm aligning myself with and i could see that he's getting something from this you know so it's not always like i say immediately transformative of his behavior, but I can see something happening in both of us that's moving in the right direction.

30:21I had to close in a minute by just touching briefly on these meditations you're going to offer starting tomorrow, but I have one more question to close out this piece of the conversation. I'm thinking back to some of what you said about your early days and how much you were navigating and running from and trying to make sense of. And I continue to be interested in this notion that you've pointed to in this conversation and also in other appearances on the show of living in a world where there's no part of you that's beyond redemption, where it really is about wholeness, where everything you are is welcome.