How To Feel Calmer, Less Stressed & More Present with Henry Shukman #632

27:54Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:But Henry, you know, there's so many interesting points there for me, right? This idea that there are benefits.

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31:20Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:There's so many interesting points there for me, right? This idea that there are benefits. Yes, and I've covered on this podcast in the past some of the neuroscience of meditation and what benefits have been shown. And the other big question I was thinking about this morning was can you really be taught the benefits like you can hear about the potential benefits but in so many ways that can make you frustrated because you've you've heard the scientific benefits of meditation therefore I should do it so that I can achieve that thing that I've been told I will get if I do it regularly. But the most powerful way of experiencing those things is to do it regularly and naturally experience those benefits rather than be told the benefits.

32:14Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yes. I think this applies to many things beyond meditation, but I truly think the most important things in life can't really be taught from the outside. They have to be experienced. Yes, they sort of grow from within. They ripen.

32:29Henry Shukman:It's much more like tend the new sapling that you've planted. Don't force it to grow. Tend it and it will grow. Give it the right nutrients, give it the right moisture and it will grow.

32:42Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah. And it's interesting what you said about the sort of optimization culture in which we live. Like if, for example, you have 10 things that you could do, well, you could do your strength training, your cardio, your cold plunge, your sauna, your whatever, right? Some of those things you can experience immediate benefit from, right? So if cold plunge is your thing, and it's not everyone's thing, but let's say it is, you're going to feel completely different every single time you go in the cold water, you're going to experience a change afterwards. So therefore, if you have a list of five or six things to do and meditation is one of them, because you may not get that obvious benefit every time you meditate, the tendency might be to go, no, I'm going to leave that one because I know I'm going to feel different if I go in the cold bath for 60 seconds.

33:37Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yes. So I think that's one potential issue. I think the other issue is that we're used to doing, right? We're a do, do, do culture. And whilst on one level meditation is doing something, you know, I'm doing my meditation, in another way, it's not doing anything at all, right? And so - That's exactly right. it's kind of funny that people say they don't have time because the people who say they don't have time which is a lot of people they'll also tell you that they're too busy and they have too many things to do but meditation is not another thing to do meditation actually gives you more time do you know what i mean it's totally yeah it's it's a rest yeah from all the things that

34:22Henry Shukman:you have to do that's exactly right it isn't another thing that you do in order to get the result that you're going to get from that thing. You put it so well that you'll get the immediate benefits of the cold plunge, for example, or the sauna, whatever. This no, it's actually letting go of that kind of pursuit. It's really paradoxical. It's counterintuitive. It's coming back to, I think one way to think of it is it's in time, it lets us just drop down to a deeper life that's already here. It's like coming back to your own true existence. It's like if you thought to your, you know, you may not want to, but think to your deathbed, you know, when you will be facing that ultimate frontier where whatever comes next, it won't be this, you know, you'll be relinquishing this kind of living, you know.

35:17Well, what about that?

35:19Henry Shukman:What if you could do every day some little thing that it isn't exactly doing that acknowledged the fact that your life is finite in this way, this kind of life is finite. What if you were actually allowing yourself to recognize mortality a little bit every day and tasting the fact that right now you're alive rather than I'm doing X to accomplish why. And then I'm going to do this thing and this thing and this thing to accomplish these things. This is almost like letting go of accomplishing. It's like, I'm actually going to, what am I before I've even thought about accomplishing anything? What am I that doesn't actually need to do anything?

36:12Henry Shukman:I'm so habituated at doing. But that doesn't mean that I've lost something in who I really am that doesn't need to do anything. Yeah, you could say, well, it needs to breathe, it needs to consume, it needs to have water. True. But the actual very bare sort of bones of your being before you're doing, you know, that is available. It's always available. So I think we sort of almost have to start meditating with some idea that we're doing it to do it, and we're doing it because it has benefits that we, one way or another, through science or through word of mouth, we trust that it will bring benefits.

36:56Henry Shukman:There's a little bit of trust. Maybe there has to be a little bit, or at least curiosity, I'm going to give it a try. But if we're convinced enough to give it a try, you then need to give it, say, a month of doing it nearly every day. You can't do a test on one only.

37:15Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah, that's useful. So if someone does want to experiment with bringing meditation into their life, you would say you've got to make that sort of commitment to yourself that you're going to sit down and meditate daily before you start assessing, is this for me? Is it any good? What benefits am I getting from it or not? Unless you've done it for 30 to 40 days, don't even consider that basically. I think somebody will go, well, I'll try it for a few days and see.

37:44Henry Shukman:but you're sort of saying, well, probably not. Yeah, I mean, like with some supplements or something, you're not going to know in a couple of days if they're really what you need. I mean, there's various other health comparisons we could make that it's not an instant thing. This is a bit like that. But the reality is that the part of you that is the non-doer, that doesn't need to do, that's already okay, that part this is how i this is a weird way to say it but that part recognizes the value of meditation already we just it's slightly under the surface and it emerges more over time yeah

38:30Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:and i guess a question i have for you is having come across in person probably tens of thousands of meditators now over the course of your career would you say there's a pattern in terms of what you've seen. Because I guess some people will come to meditation because they're really struggling. You know, they're depressed. They don't like the way that they feel. So they're looking for something to, in inverted commas, fix them. Right? Whereas you could also use it if, you know, like I've chosen to meditate, not to get me away from something I don't like, but to experience life more fully. So are people who meditate regularly, do you find that they tend to be calmer, less reactive, have a greater sense of inner peace, or does it sort of depend on why you started to engage with meditation in the first place?

39:25Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah, that's a great question.

39:27Henry Shukman:I mean, let's say, I would say that overall, yes, everybody's moving towards a calmer, less reactive, more appreciative way of being, more alive. I would say meditation actually increases our capacity for life. I mean, it's live more is actually a very appropriate slogan, really, or one catchword for it. It actually gives you more life. Partly because you're just not lost in the impetus, the momentum of, you know, the daily grind of what I've got to do. You're starting to actually experience your life as you're doing things. People obviously come into it for different reasons, a whole range of reasons.

40:13Henry Shukman:Broadly speaking, it's somewhere between, you know, I'm having a miserable time, I want to be less miserable, and my life's great, and I'm curious. I've heard that you can explore life itself through meditating. So I'd say that, for example, when I'm leading a retreat like I'll be doing tomorrow, it's going to be the full range. There'll be people who have just had a catastrophic loss. There are people who might have had a catastrophic diagnosis. There'll be people who are just in the fullness of life, having a great time, riding. Their projects are all flourishing. And they've got this little acre of curiosity and they really want to explore.

41:01Henry Shukman:Actually, what is this thing being alive? And am I fully sort of connected with who I most deeply am? Can I explore who I am? I've assumed I know who I am all these years. What if I could actually explore more deeply? What is this thing being Henry? You know, what is that? What's actually happening? And who really am I? Those things, meditation, is actually great for all of them. It really can meet each of us where we need to be met. And I think, well, how is that possible? And one of the things that people will hear about meditation that may even put them off is like, it's about being in the present moment.

41:44Henry Shukman:Well, of course I'm in the present moment.

41:46Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I'm in the present moment all through the day.

41:50Henry Shukman:Actually, in a way, not really. There's the difference between, yeah, you know, knowing I want to order that coffee, I'm walking through the station, I'm going into the meeting, I'm doing the sales call or whatever, knowing that I'm doing those things, versus actually doing all the same things, but richly present for them, really experiencing it. And it's very different. And when we're really, really present, time, it changes. It does. You know, it's not this ticker tape clock time. It's the richness of being, you know, and that is really where we find this fuller life. That's where we find the more life, you know, because we're not, there's a tyranny of time, of the clock.

42:40Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I think you touched something really important there. A lot of people, as you said, they might get put off saying, yeah, it really helps you be present. Well, what does that mean? Why do I need to be present? but presence is literally all that you have, right? If you're not present, you're not actually experiencing life. You're just trying to plan for the future or you're ruminating on the past, but you're not actually living.

43:03Henry Shukman:Yes, yes.

43:04Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You know, as you say, you're operating at the level of time travel in your mind. Yes. But everything is always happening only in the present moment. Even your recollection of the past is happening now. Exactly. right exactly so what's what happened in the past isn't actually happening anymore no but you constantly thinking about it is dragging the past into your presence yes so i don't think there's anything greater than actually being able to be in the present moment and experience it if i'll say one of the things that i have really got from using the way and we'll we'll get to this at some point in this conversation about the hindrances.

43:47Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You write about the five hindrances and original love and you know how much I love that book. But one thing I got from your meditation that I also remember speaking to Geelong Thugton about, he's a monk from a different tradition. And one of the things I think when Thugton came on this show, he was talking to me about, if you're experiencing pain, if you can actually sit with that pain, the pain starts to change. So it's not about saying, oh my God, I'm in pain. I don't want to be in pain. It's like, I'm in pain. Now let me really experience that pain and be present with that pain and being okay with that pain.

44:32Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And by doing so, the nature of that pain starts to change. Absolutely. Which is so profound when you're not used to thinking like that. Yes, because you automatically think, I want to get rid of it. Exactly. Either distract myself from it or just get rid of it. But the pain is there for a reason. Why not try and make friends with the pain?

44:53Henry Shukman:Exactly.

44:54Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And then see what happens. Exactly. And this applies to emotional pain.

44:58Henry Shukman:If we can learn to experience the sensory side of an emotion, That's to say the physical side of it, that a feeling in the body, it's usually chest area or diaphragm area, so somewhere in the upper torso usually. There's some research that says it's usually 94 % in the chest. But depending on the emotion, actually, with anxiety, 94 % of people, this is some research, they tend to experience it in the chest if they look for it. And the other 6 % is a little bit lower. But be that as it may, if we learn to experience our emotions as body sensations, then we stop being so caught up in the stories that are going on in our minds.

45:44Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And why is that helpful? Why, for example, is it important if you struggle with anxiety to be able to locate where that is in your body? What's the problem with going, I'm anxious, I don't want to feel anxious, let me distract myself on Instagram? Yeah. Well, if you distract yourself from it, you haven't really advanced in any way.

46:05Henry Shukman:The distraction will end and you'll be back and it'll be back. It may not be back immediately, but it'll just come back. If we can learn to be with difficult emotions, and they're called difficult because they are difficult to be with, but if we can learn to be with them, then we have a chance to grow our capacity basically as human beings. We're sort of growing because we can hold what we previously couldn't hold. We can learn to host a difficult feeling, to actually let it be part of our experience. And once we can hold it and not try to push it away and not try to distract from it, it has a chance to change.

46:49Henry Shukman:And so this actually, it all interrelates. The mind, as we're talking about, is like a time traveler. It'll go to future scenarios and past scenarios, simulations almost in the mind. The body can't do that. The body doesn't do time travel. So once we get out of the stories we're telling ourselves about an emotion, for example, anxiety or restlessness, if we just stay in the thought loops around it, nothing's going to happen. We're just going to stay in the thought loops. If we get down to the sensation of it in the body, now we're actually in the present moment because the body can't do time travel.

47:30Henry Shukman:So this has a double benefit. One, we start to be present. Secondly, we've got the chance to develop the capacity to be with what we find difficult emotionally rather than push it away. In other words, we move from resistance, pushing away, I don't want this, to letting it be. And exactly as your friend Tipton was saying, once we can do that, it can start to change. it can't do it when we're resisting it. It tends to actually even sometimes get stronger. Yeah, what you resist persists, right? Exactly. But once we can, once we, and it's again, it's about that sort of vulnerability, that tenderness, that softening.

48:21Henry Shukman:And, you know, this is how we work with our inner life. It's not with the same kind of, you know, I'm going to conquer it or whatever our mindset might be about the outer life. It doesn't work with the inner life. You know, and if we tried to make it work, we'd end up, well, we do end up having a shallower life, a brittle life. And, you know, and we may probably have to keep compensating with alcohol or something to get through it. But actually to tenderize ourselves and let ourselves have the emotions we have. This is how we work with the hindrances that you mentioned earlier. is through learning to be with them, not resist them, not push them away, be with them.

49:04Henry Shukman:And actually, you know, that's a great path of growth. We're learning, we're developing as emotional creatures. Our hearts are growing. We're getting more into sort of living from the heart, not just the mind, the heart too. And that makes life so much richer. and you know i think if we don't have time in our day when we're still on a regular basis

49:28Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:i don't know how easy it is to do that exactly solitude i think is so essential these days as the world is getting noisier and noisier i think you need respite from that not just once a week every single day and of course meditation is one way in which you can do that henry if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, okay, all right, I've heard enough. I need to, or I want to give this meditation thing a go, right? Earlier on, you said that, look, before you judge whether it's working for you or not, whatever that means, you know, give it at least 30 days, maybe even 40 days, right? And in Original Love, which is, I think, your most recent book, I know there's a section where you actually write about, you know, at the start, you really want to focus on consistency, right?

50:28Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Instead of just doing one 20 minute session once a week, you're much better off doing five minutes a day. And even those five minutes, they will start to give you benefits, right? So let's imagine we're talking to that beginner, someone who's never done it before. And we could talk about it through the lens of your app if you want, because you guys, you know, you've very kindly given my audience 30 days of free meditations to try, right? So people can actually see if it's their thing or not. So let's say someone wants to do that. I don't know, how do they start? You know, when do they do it in the day?

51:02Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You know, are there better times than other times? You know, let's just make this bit super practical for people who actually want to get going with meditation.

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53:13Henry Shukman:Yeah, great. So I would say here's the ideal, and then there's modifications from it. The absolute ideal is to do it as early as possible in the day. The reason it's easiest then is that we just haven't yet got caught up in the current of the day. Once we've reached for the phone or once we've started making breakfast with the kids... It's game over for me. Yeah, I'm with you. And I feel that is that definitely that's the best way to do it if we can. But some people just can't. So then what I recommend is try to do it right before a meal. So let's say you've got a lunch break. Don't just immediately open a Tupperware and start eating.

53:58Henry Shukman:Do it right before you start eating. It's quite nice to do it before a meal because you've got the meal to look forward to. but you've deferred the meal, and there's a pleasure just in deferring it. Because you've just that little bit of, sort of, honey, we're going to just wait a moment, that kind of just little bit of self-discipline, I use the word cautiously, but little bit of self-discipline. I'm not going to eat rice just now. Ten minutes, I'm just going to do my meditation first. You enjoy the meal all the more, and you'll have done your meditation. So if you can't do it first thing, try to do it maybe before lunch if you can't do it then and the moment you come home from work you're just caught up in kids stuff or whatever just do it before the end of the day some people do it as a wind down before they go to sleep that's also okay it actually it's far more important to do it during the day at some point

54:59Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:than to do it early in the day if you can't do it at the perfect time of day don't worry about it But if you want to commit to this practice, just make sure you do it at some point.

55:10Henry Shukman:Yeah, I will not put my head on a pillow until I've done it. And actually, I mean, I know people, that's all they've ever done. It's always been lasting at night. And that has huge benefits from the practice, because they've just locked it in. So the second thing I'd say is make the decision upstream. I've decided I'm going to try meditating for 30 days. So you don't have to keep revisiting that decision every time you're about to do it. You see what I mean? You don't say, today, shall I do it or not? No, you've already made the decision. I'm going to give it a 30-day trial. And so therefore, you don't have to make the decision many times.

55:51Henry Shukman:You made it once. That makes it a lot easier. How to hold yourself to it? Well, again, you just say, I'm not going to go to bed without doing it. And maybe I'm ready for bed. I'm going to sit on the edge of the bed and do it, and then I'm going to lie down. Worst case scenario, I'm actually going to lie down and do it lying down. That's okay. It's better than just going to sleep without having done it. So we've got to be pragmatic about fitting it into our day with morning, early, being optimal. But all of it's okay. So that's a couple of things. For beginners, it's actually better not to do it right after a meal.

56:33Henry Shukman:It's just a little bit easier if your stomach isn't full. That's the wisdom of the ages. They always say that about it. At a certain point, it won't make much difference. But early on, it does.

56:46Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Okay, that's interesting.

56:47Henry Shukman:So that's something. Sometimes people stack it with exercise, and probably you do it after exercise. You know, the way at the end of a yoga class, there's often a little bit of meditation. So when you've been working out with your body, you're a little bit more in your body, it can make it a bit easier to get into meditation. So you can tack it onto something you're doing anyway.

57:11Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And what about for people who like to start, you know, their day with a cup of tea or coffee? Yes. Is it better or advisable to meditate before that? Or can you have that caffeinated drink first before you meditate? Or does it not make any difference? You totally can have it before.

57:29Henry Shukman:I have to admit, I often do that myself, actually. and tea has a long relationship with meditation. Of course, yeah. And it's caffeinated. So I would say this, if you really want a coffee or tea, make it and immediately bring it to where you're going to meditate and sort of sip it right where you are. And if it's really hot, you know, have a little bit of it and just let it sit there, do your 10 minutes and then finish it. You know, so don't have the tea. I mean, we're getting really precise now, But if you have the tea sort of separately from your place of meditation, you might get caught up in other stuff and not get to the place of meditation.

58:10Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:If that makes sense. Okay. And you mentioned 10 minutes there. And again, just to make sure this is practical for people. I know in page 56, I think of Original Love, you have this sort of guide, you know, practice it. It's how long and what time of day. and a target level of duration ultimately might be 20 minutes, but it's way better to do five minutes every day than 20 minutes twice a week. You say that when you're starting, don't do it for too long. Five minutes is a perfectly fine starting dose. I think that's so helpful, right? Because if you're not used to sitting in silence, with your internal world.

58:58Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:20 minutes can be a long time initially, right? Yes. Five minutes can seem a long time, but five minutes feels very achievable to people. Yes. And so I would say to anyone listening, if you've ever thought about meditation and it's piqued your interest, why couldn't you commit to doing five minutes a day for the next 30 days?

59:20Henry Shukman:Yes, yes.

59:20Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I mean, you could do. You could, yeah. And if you say you can't, that there'll be a reason that you're, there'll be an obstacle you're putting in the way of doing it. Because there's no reason any one of us can't do something for five minutes a day for 30 days. Exactly. And I bet many, many people have spent at least five minutes a day mindlessly on the phone. For sure. But they'll say they don't have time for meditation, but they've got the time to scroll for that long. And I'm not having a go at people. I'm saying there's a perception of it feels different. you know it feels for some people and we harder yeah because it's i think there's a perception that i'm going to do it wrong or i don't know how to do it and i kind of feel that people think

1:00:06Henry Shukman:meditation is something that it isn't yeah exactly i think that i i this is i'm very i really understand this i had it myself i thought when i started that meditation meant what i now know means an experienced meditator experiences. I thought it had to be this sort of very peaceful, serene, happy, clear, no thoughts arising, blissed out, or something like that. I thought it had to mean that. It doesn't at all. It's warts and all. It's a total acceptance of how we are.

1:00:42Henry Shukman:So, just sitting down and being with ourselves as we are, that is it. And so, having a little bit of guidance also is a really helpful thing. I actually didn't have that myself when I started. I was just on my own doing it. I did the deep end, 20 minutes, twice a day, actually. You went all in. Yeah, all in, because that's how I was taught. And I'm very grateful that I was. But I now know that that is by no means the only way to do it. So I'd say with the Way, we've got a bit of a halfway house. Our sits are basically 10 minutes. You can increase the length if you want. But because it's quite closely guided, I think actually everybody can follow the Way from the start.

1:01:27Henry Shukman:100%. And before you know it, the 10 minutes is up. Right.

1:01:29Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Before you know it, oh, Henry's asking me to open my eyes now and get ready to get back into the world. So it feels very, very doable. One of the things I love about the Way the most is the fact that there's no choice. Okay, because most of these apps, of course, there were lots of very good apps out there, right? But a lot of them, you go on and you have to choose what you're going to do from this vast library of content. And every time you have to make a decision, you're using up some of your cognitive reserve. It can be stressful sometimes. Which one of these wonderful meditations shall I do?

1:02:11Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I think literally, I think one of the best things about the way is that there isn't a choice. You go on and you do the next meditation. And, you know, fans of this podcast, people who've read my book on happiness will know that chapter two is called Eliminate Choice. And I talk about the problems of too much choice in our lives and why eliminating choice where we can in our life can simplify life massively. And then when I downloaded The Way many, many months ago, I was like, oh my God, I love it. There is no choice. But that's liberating. It's actually, you know, because why do you need to choose each day?

1:02:51Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:What kind of meditation am I up for doing? It's hard enough for people to actually get going with a meditation practice, let alone choose the flavor and type of meditation they want. So was that quite an intentional choice when you were sort of putting together the app. Totally.

1:03:07Henry Shukman:I would almost say that was the reason we created the app, was that it should be a single pathway without any choice. And the challenge was how to create a pathway that's a path of training, takes you deeper, gently, gradually, exploring different aspects of meditation in a way that really made sense. That was the challenge. And that was the joy for me to be able to, you know, actually have this way of sharing with, thankfully, I mean, amazingly, many people already, you know, sharing what I've learned, you know, and what I've through hard, hard won and hard earned sort of, you know, a lot of work on the meditation cushion over the decades.

1:03:51Henry Shukman:I sort of learned that, yeah, there are these different dimensions of the practice, different aspects of the practice and they kind of work somewhat in in a sequence yeah

1:04:03Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:i mean you know you keep going and then a lesson that perhaps you didn't fully get first time round you revisit a few weeks later yeah and because you've done other elements of practice in those weeks in between sometimes it just lands differently you're like oh i get it now oh you know I didn't get it first time around, but now I get what he means when he's saying that. But I think what you need, which is what you've been talking about during this podcast so far, and we assist, you need to trust the process.

1:04:35Henry Shukman:That's right.

1:04:36Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You need to make the commitment to yourself that I'm going to show up and sit on the meditation cushion, the metaphorical cushion, if you don't use a cushion, every day and trust that over time, those benefits will start to infiltrate my life. Exactly.

1:04:54Henry Shukman:It's really, I feel somehow sometimes that it's just, it's like a presence of putting ourselves in the way of something larger than us.

1:05:03Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You know,

1:05:03Henry Shukman:that we're opening up just a little tiny bit, the door to sort of not having the full picture. Maybe I don't know everything about what my life really is. And I'm just going to follow this path and let myself follow it and trust that the process is going to take care of itself. And so that, in other words, there's some sort of wisdom that has been handed down over the thousands of years. And it's, of course, in many, many different traditions, many, many ways, about our human nature that can gradually grow in us. It's not we're being sort of given something, we're just being helped to discover something about who we actually already are.

1:05:49Henry Shukman:and it just takes time. And so if we have a path that we can follow, we just trust the path.

1:05:56Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah. Do you find, you know, being someone who's meditated for so long, you're at the moment in the UK, you live in New Mexico in America and you're in the UK and you're traveling around, okay? So you've been in Scotland, you just come down to my studio today, then you're going to London. when the inevitabilities of life kick in, travel delays, right? You're taking the British Rail Service at the moment and it's been cold recently and when it gets to about two degrees, things stop working as efficiently as they might do, right? Would you say that, I know it's been years since you've started meditating, so I don't know if you can really compare before and after, but would you say you're just generally more patient or when a train is delayed or let's say you miss your connection do you find that you're less likely to get stressed out by these things because of your practice on the meditation cushion yeah i i can honestly say that i do get less

1:07:04Henry Shukman:stressed less stressed out i do it's not that i sort of never ever would but i i generally don't I'd get more bothered by people I love going through a hard time. That's what would engage more of a reaction in me is when somebody I really care about is having a hard time. That can be very hard. But here's the thing. What it really comes down to is the sense of, I don't know if this is going to sound too strange, but of a kind of goodness in life itself, a goodness in awareness itself, a goodness in being present itself. I sense that very easily. And so very often when I'm, if I've been going through sort of turbulent time and I've got a little off track, I sit and I just, sooner or later, I'm just going to find there's this goodness.

1:08:08Henry Shukman:It's just present. And it doesn't feel like it's conditional. It doesn't feel like this goodness is dependent on the right conditions. It feels like it's always been here. And this life is floating on it. So it's like then the train is laid. I mean, it doesn't compare with it. So what kind of thing? Yeah, it just doesn't compare. Because this goodness is so good. And I have to say, I'm not a sort of faith-based thing. You know, I'm non-religious, basically, you know, and I probably pushed, I actually, I'd say I'm kind of an atheist or at least an agnostic, but I totally feel that there's something in the very fabric of our being and of our consciousness that's so universal, that's unconditionally good.

1:08:59Henry Shukman:And I can't explain it, but I'm convinced that it's real. And I don't think of it as a theological thing at all.

1:09:08Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:No, I think it is who we all are. I don't think this division that we perceive these days is real in the sense that it is real, but it's a downstream consequence. I think ultimately who we are at our core is good, is compassionate, is kind. I remember when you first came on the podcast, Henry, a few months ago, I think I started off by asking you what you thought of the Dalai Lama quotes. I think it was, I think he said, if every eight-year-old was taught how to meditate,

1:09:43Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:we'd solve all human suffering within a generation or something like that. And I think when you meditate regularly, I think you do access this kindness and you want to be good to yourself and to the world around you. On page 211 of Original Love, I underlined a paragraph that I think speaks to this idea. In the end, the thing that matters is our heart and how much it breaks open. It wouldn't be wrong to view the entirety of a life of growth through meditation practice as an ever more breaking heart, a heart that can handle ever more heartbreak and still be at peace and know love. I mean, that's just so beautiful, Henry.

1:10:37And I would say one of my intentions going

1:10:41Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:to 2026 is to try to the best of my ability to live each and every single day with an open heart. I think that's the most important thing I can do in life is live with an open heart and notice if there's ever a tendency for your heart to close yeah right yes and I think these days I can notice it early go oh there it is hold on okay that you don't need to close your heart you know can you be compassionate can you love people can you want the best for people can you do stuff for others without any expectation of them doing anything in return for you these are things that I have been thinking a lot about over the past few years and I find that when I can live with an open heart when I want to do the right thing not so that people will say I did the right thing or so that I can gain thanks for doing the right thing just because I know it's the right thing to do and it feels good for me that's when i'm living my best life yeah and i feel meditation helps me access that state more often i fully agree i really think in the end that's

1:11:54Henry Shukman:its true purpose is to help our human hearts be fully open and i i also actually feel that the more open our hearts are, the more intrinsic connection we discover. There's something about the fully open heart that just ends separation. It really, an ultimate level, I think there's a way that our hearts actually bring us to some kind of ground of being that all things are part of. Yeah. And that we really can, again, it's not, this isn't found through dogma or doctrine or any real belief system, actually. It's found through our own experience. And that's what I love most about meditation, that it's so shockingly simple.

1:12:56Henry Shukman:It's just being here. And in just being here, we could find this boundless love. I don't understand it, but I know it's real. And it connects us with everything. One of the things I think about when I think about meditation

1:13:14Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:is that even the word meditation, in some ways, I won't say it's misleading, but there's a perception if we hear the word meditation that it's one thing, right? Oh, you're meditating. You're either meditating or you're not meditating. But it feels like meditation is almost the umbrella term for us to start examining our internal worlds. And there are so many different ways to meditate. You know, very, very simply, you've got focused attention via open awareness, right? They're both meditation practices, but they're a different way of experiencing meditation. So perhaps you could explain what was the difference and when might we want focused attention versus when might we want open awareness.

1:14:04Henry Shukman:Yeah, that's right. And I mean, there are probably thousands of forms of meditation. That's two big families, focused attention, open awareness. And actually in the way we weave between the two, we use both. But focused attention would be the classic kind of thing that people think of meditation as being is following the breath. I've got to stay aware of my breath as it comes and goes. And that's great. That's fine. Open awareness is more like I don't have a particular thing I'm going to be aware of, but I'm going to be aware of whatever arises in experience. So I might find I'm feeling the seat beneath my buttocks.

1:14:44Henry Shukman:Fine. I'm aware of light on my eyelids or even my eyes might be open. and I'm aware of colors and shapes, and now I'm aware of sound, and so on. So open awareness is wide open to whatever arises, and focused attention, it could be trained on anything. We do both in the app, but we're sort of building up a picture gradually over time that we're recognizing, oh yeah, that's sound, I'm hearing. Oh yeah, that's seeing, I'm seeing. Oh yeah, this is sensing, the inner body sensation. This is emotion sensation. These are thoughts I'm hearing in my mind or images I'm seeing in my mind. So we're gradually getting a fuller and fuller picture of all the dimensions of our experience.

1:15:28Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah, your experience is so much deeper and more enhanced. That's honestly the thing I said before about what I've, one of the big benefits I have experienced since using the way is I feel that, you know, if my experience before was two-dimensional, now feels like it's nine dimensional right there's i'm just so much more aware of everything yeah like it's richer yeah so it's easier to be in silence because there is so much richness in the silence and i feel you've done a great job in the app of actually helping us

1:16:09Henry Shukman:experiencing all these different things i'm happy to hear it of course but that is that is exactly the point that we've been given such a rich experience, but we haven't really been helped to recognize that. You know, usually from a young age, we've been drilled in learning stuff and absorbing knowledge and information rather than how to live, how to experience the richness.

1:16:37Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I wish kids were all taught to meditate at school, at primary school. Yeah.

1:16:42Henry Shukman:We used to have a program actually helping teachers in public schools in our region in the US just do little hits of meditation in the classroom. Wow. And I think there's quite a few programs like that now.

1:16:56Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:May there be more. Yeah. Before you mentioned that when you host retreats like you are tomorrow, people come for all kinds of different reasons. Some people may have experienced great loss, right? And when you said that, I thought, how does meditation help someone or how might it help someone deal with grief? Yeah.

1:17:23Henry Shukman:I feel we've all got deep wisdom in us. And there's something about this practice that helps us access that. And that wisdom is large enough to understand loss and grief, to be with loss and grief. And even if that doesn't come up immediately, the practice doesn't shut down grief. It doesn't shut it down. It provides a space in which somebody can be with their grief. Because grief is a human experience. It's a beautiful, deep part of how we cope with very difficult things. And it's not something we need to shut down, actually. But, of course, we live in a grief-avoidant culture, a culture that really, on the whole, doesn't like grief, doesn't believe in it.

1:18:17Henry Shukman:But it's the most natural thing. So meditation gives us a space in which we can know our grief and feel it and be with it. And basically, it teaches us to let a broken heart become an open heart. you know, rather than thinking a heartbreak is something I've got to fix. No, it's going to teach me something. It's going to teach me how to live with an open heart. You know, so that's, meditation is providing a context. It's giving space and time for that to develop. You know, so that's at the simplest level. It's just space and time to be with what we're going through.

1:19:02Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:What about trauma? A lot of people struggle with trauma. How can meditation help people process their trauma?

1:19:10Henry Shukman:Yeah. I mean, I feel trauma comes in many forms and it has many causes. Complex trauma and childhood trauma and immediate kind of catastrophic event trauma. They're all a little different, although of course there's common threads. I think on the whole, meditation, I think of it as a part of a support. for someone dealing with trauma and how to process it, they may also need some other kinds of help and support, you know, with therapeutic or whatever, other kinds of help. There's a lot of research now, I think, on actually the body is a way to work with trauma. Bessel van der Kolk's amazing book, The Body Keeps the Score, he talks about that, you know, dance and sport and things.

1:19:55Henry Shukman:Let those be part of the trauma release process.

1:19:58Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah. I think meditation can also help us be happier. Happiness doesn't mean just having a smile on our face the whole time. But there is this deep sense of happiness that I think we all do want and we can all access. And, you know, there are so many bits of writing in Original Love that I just love. But I just want to read you this section from page 87, which I think really speaks to another one of the benefits of meditation that I think many people want even if they don't know they want it, right? All the way through the different possible levels of meditation practice, we're learning to be happier with less.

1:20:46Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:We're becoming less focused on what we want and learning to mind less when what we don't want is showing up. I love that. Learning to mind less when what we don't want is showing up. We're discovering an intrinsic happiness within. And so our concern with outer circumstances is gently tempered and lessened. We're developing a stability of character, we could say, independent of condition. I just love that so much it so speaks to my soul this idea that actually we can learn to be happier with less I feel that's been one of the big changes with me Henry over the last decade or so I really feel I just don't want much stuff these days I'm happy with me and where I'm at in life and what I do and who I am it's funny a lot of people get seduced by advertising, don't they?

1:21:50Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:But I think you can only get seduced by advertising when there's something lacking within you. Yes.

1:21:59Henry Shukman:And see how like, just the way you described that, I could totally feel it as well. The peace and the freedom when you're already okay. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's available to all of us. That's the thing I also always really want to convey with meditation. it's not something special in the sense that everybody has access to it. And the fruits of it, that being at home in your own being is totally available to everyone. Yeah, there could be exceptional circumstances where circumstances that are so horrific that they're really pressing in and they need to be addressed before we could be thinking about this.

1:22:41Henry Shukman:But outside of that, basically, you don't have to be remarkable in any way. It's just absolutely ordinary, but we're not used to looking for it or finding it. So it seems not ordinary, but it is ordinary. Everybody's got it. And so I'm really hoping that we can be part of making it better recognized, better known, that there's this totally ordinary thing that's so good that everybody has. and when we find it when we're at home like like that in ourselves we just automatically don't want to create so much harm yeah and we feel less aggression and hate and we don't want to be we're less prone to being kind of riled up yeah and that's honestly how i believe we change the

1:23:38Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:world, it's one person at a time. I think the change that we all want in the world doesn't actually come from the outside in, it comes from the inside out. If I'm able to change my internal experience of life and I always share it with an open heart, then that permeates to everyone I interact with. My family, the supermarket attendants, the barista who makes me come, whatever, you know, that permeates there. And then they're more likely to do that in their life. Right? I think too often we're waiting for the outside world to change. And when the outside world changes, we'll change. I'm not sure I think that's the best way to really create this big seismic shift across the world.

1:24:31Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I think literally it happens one person at a time and meditation can help us live in a much more kind and considerate way. And if we all start doing that, hence the Dalai Lama quote, right? Exactly. The world will change.

1:24:45Henry Shukman:Yes, yes, yes.

1:24:46Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:But the responsibility is on all of us, I think, on an individual level, that if we can sit with the reality of life and commit to something like meditation, we will change. And therefore, the people around you will change also. Exactly. You can imagine if that's on a mass scale.

1:25:05Henry Shukman:Yes.

1:25:05Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Well, that's how you create a new world.

1:25:07Henry Shukman:Exactly. Beautiful. It's exactly because we really are already so interconnected anyway. Exactly. And you know, it's, it is exactly like that ripple that just compounds and compounds as it goes.

1:25:20Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:One of the things I meant to talk to you about in our first conversation, which you didn't get to, and I'd love to talk about it today, is Cohen's. Okay? Now, until I came across your work and read Original Love, I had never heard of a Cohen. So your, I guess, tradition of meditation is the Zen tradition, right? I'd say I've been trained deeply in that

1:25:44Henry Shukman:and it's broader. I've done various kinds of training, but that's my deepest training.

1:25:50Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Okay. And I guess maybe for people like me who don't fully understand the meaning of Zen, first of all, it's a gorgeous word, but what does it actually mean?

1:26:01Henry Shukman:Yeah, Zen is a form of Buddhism, basically, that evolved in China. And they claim that it really started in India. Perhaps there's some truth to that. and then it came to China and then it spread throughout East Asia and became Zen as we know it is largely a Japanese version of what was developed in China, somewhat anyway. Essentially, it's a very stripped down, sparse, spare form of Buddhism. So there's really, it's mostly about just the meditation. And it's usually very simple meditation, follow the breath or don't even do that, just be with whatever arises. So that's sort of at its heart is approximately that.

1:26:45Henry Shukman:But one of the things that it has done is pay special attention sometimes to what we might call experiences of awakening. That's to say, sudden shifts, when we just feel the world and ourselves in a totally different way, when we really get a sudden hit that there's no gap between me and everything or i hardly exist i'm just everything else you know and i see that my sense of self has been in some ways an invention or an imagined constructed thing so you can have these very strong revelatory moments when we experience ourselves in the world in a different way they're beautiful beautiful beautiful thing usually very meaningful for somebody and can really change how we feel about life.

1:27:33Henry Shukman:So Zen acknowledges that, and it has provided these little phrases have come out of the tradition of awakened Zen masters over the centuries, over the millennia, that are really strange, but the idea is that they can help precipitate that kind of shift in how we experience things. You know, a famous one would be, you know the sound of two hands clapping, but what is the sound of one hand? That's a famous one. What is the sound of one hand?

1:28:10Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And can I just ask, right, is there a right answer to all of these Coens, or is the interpretation personal and individual?

1:28:20Henry Shukman:Yes, definitely personal. There isn't a right answer. They're simply little goads or catalysts that sometimes can provoke a really different way of experiencing the world. But, you know, they're very beautiful and remarkable, but they're not...

1:28:41Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:That's quite advanced practice, isn't it? I think so. That's not, you know, if you're someone who's about to embark on this five minutes a day for 30 days as a way of trying to get into meditation, you wouldn't necessarily recommend you deal with Cohen's just yet.

1:28:58Henry Shukman:Exactly. Don't worry about them at all. You know, that's when we've really embedded in practice. We've got a deep practice growing. And if we're curious.

1:29:06Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:The one I really like, I can't remember now, but my recollection of this one, and please correct me if I've got any part of this incorrect, but it's the one where the man walks into the butcher shop and asks the butcher, which is the best piece of meat? The butcher says, every piece is the best piece.

1:29:28Henry Shukman:Yes, yes.

1:29:29Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:now I think the reason I really like that is because I felt immediately intuitively that I I understood it yeah or at least whether I understood it the way it was designed to be understood that I can't say but I at least I at least heard it and I thought I think I get that so what I get from that Cohen is a couple of things you know which piece of meat is the best piece the butcher says every piece is the best piece the first thing I get from that is this idea that every moment is unique every single moment has its own essence and can't be compared to any other moments because that moment has a separate essence so therefore every single piece and meat that I might want to buy from this butcher is perfect in its own right.

1:30:30Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:That's one thing that I take from that. The other element that I take when I hear that Cohen is

1:30:42life is just perspective.

1:30:46Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Who says what is the best piece? Best piece compared to what? can you experience every moment knowing this to be the perfect moment for you every piece of meat in the shop I could buy it cook it can you savor every single one in the same way knowing that they're all going to taste different but you saying that that tastes better than that one is a judgment it's a perception that I'm putting onto that moment the moment is simply me experiencing the piece of meat that I bought, if I start to judge one piece as better than another, that judgment is where a lot of problems start to come in other aspects of our life.

1:31:34Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:So that's anyway, please feel free to comment. But that's where I get to when I think about that, Cohen. Fantastic. Fantastic.

1:31:42Henry Shukman:Two out of five. No, no, no, no, no. You nailed it. Beautiful. I mean, imagine like... Is that what you think they meant? I'm not going to say definitively. I don't want to say definitively. Because one of the things about them is that they're open-ended. They're not closing the book. Here's the right answer. No. It's what does it provoke in somebody who hears it? What does it fertilize in somebody who hears it? But staying with that one, I mean, this very moment now, you know, for anybody listening, just this very moment, what if this is the best moment? No matter what we might be going through, this very moment, I mean, you said it very well, Rangan, like, actually, this is truly the only moment.

1:32:41Henry Shukman:This right now is what is just this. Right now, this is what is. And that's true for every single one of us. So can we, you know, just sort of by doing the judging thing, we lose that. As long as we're judging, comparing we're actually we can't recognize this very moment now as the only thing there is. There's a great saying from a Zen master called Thich Nhat Hanh. He said all there is is this moment and everything is here. Everything is here. so that is i mean that is a marvelous fact it's a marvelous thing that always we're right in the middle of everything yeah i love it i love it i i think cohen's are

1:33:51Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:something that i'm going to spend some time with because i'm i am curious um and the reason that one came up the funny thing is i i brought that up with my kids over dinner a couple of days ago we you know and i don't know if that's not the done thing or whether you have to meditate for a series of years first before you access this but i love chatting to my kids about this kind of stuff and it was just interesting to hear what they were saying about it when they heard it because i I think sometimes kids, actually, what I found, sometimes kids can almost get the depth behind these things better than adults because they haven't quite been schooled enough yet out of their essence.

1:34:37Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Exactly. Their minds are still open. Yeah, so they get it. Yeah, I think that's true. If you've been around the block a few times and you've grown cynical and skeptical about the world, you're often closed-minded when you hear these things. That's right. I mean, there's other comments out there that, frankly, I don't have a clue what they mean. What are some of the other ones? Is it something about Mount Etna? Oh, there's Make Mount Fuji Take Three Steps.

1:35:04Henry Shukman:That's another one.

1:35:05Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Yeah, I'm not ready for that one yet. Another anymore that you want to share with people?

1:35:10Henry Shukman:There's one where, I really like this one, where there's one where a student asks, what is the essence of awakening? What is a true reality of awakening? And the master says, pass me the water jug. Pass me the water jug. So the student moves the water jug, passes it to the master. And the master, she says, did you understand? And of course, the student says, I didn't understand anything. and she says put the water jug back and so he puts the jug back and then she says now did you understand i said i didn't understand i love that one because she's actually saying you know this very cup in my hand what if this is the totality of reality so well it obviously isn't there's just a little cup.

1:36:02Henry Shukman:But what if somehow everything is really right here? So as I move the water jug, is anything absent? Is anything lacking? Is there actually any deficiency anywhere, just by in the act of moving that jug? What if that itself is a kind of miracle? Yeah.

1:36:28Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I mean, I guess in so many different ways throughout this conversation, Henry, we're talking about the ability to fully inhabit the moment. Fully. That the moment has multiple dimensions to it. And so often we think we're in the moment, but we're not. Yes, we could be, you know, going through mental time travel, but we could also just be seeing an experience of the moment in just one or two dimensions rather than all the dimensions that do exist. And I think that's the gift that meditation can give us if we can set the intention and make the time each day, which is not very much, to actually commit to the practice.

1:37:10Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Exactly. Just a little bit each day and it just grows by itself. Is there something that you think is important for people to know about meditation that we haven't covered yet in today's conversation, Henry? I could just say it gives so much meaning to life.

1:37:33Henry Shukman:I mean, it's a homecoming. You know, it's you coming home to your true place in the universe.

1:37:42Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:You know, and I mean, in a way, what could be more important? What can be more important? I completely agree. Well, Henry, listen, I love talking to you. I would highly, highly encourage people check out Original Love and your memoir, One Blade of Grass. But also don't just think about meditation. Don't just think, well, at some point in the future when I've got time, I'll bring it into my life. Get going today, right? Set the intention. if it speaks to you you know download the way and do those 30 free meditations and see how you go you know um one thing we didn't mention before i just want to quickly ask you some people get confused with things like posture when they're meditating so do you need a cushion you know a meditation cushion um is it okay if you slump against a wall or do you need a straight back?

1:38:43Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Should it be on the floor or on a chair? If you could just quickly touch off those basics for people, because I know they're going to ask me on Instagram otherwise, you know, what they're meant to do. Could you just sort of walk us through how important those things are? Yeah.

1:38:57Henry Shukman:With posture, the most important thing actually is to be comfortable. Traditionally, meditation is done sitting. And that's what I usually recommend, unless there's some reason that that's uncomfortable for you. So just sitting in a chair is totally fine. If you want to, you can sit with a free back, so where you're not reclining against the back, you're sitting with your spine upright. And then it's really important that it be balanced. So you want to make sure that your ears are over your shoulders and your shoulders are over your hips, and that you're balanced so you can be relaxed. But that's not that important.

1:39:36Henry Shukman:The number one thing is comfort and any kind of chair will do. If you want to sit on a cushion designed for meditation, of course, feel free to. If you want to sit on a couch, if you want to sit on the edge of your bed, whatever works for you most readily is the best place to be. So it's not terribly

1:39:56Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:important. That's interesting because I think sometimes if you're trying to think about your posture and that straight back whilst trying to meditate, I think for some people it makes the meditation even harder because you're not actually thinking about the meditation, you're thinking about, oh my back hurts, you know, am I doing it right? Yeah, and you might keep adjusting, like am I really balanced?

1:40:18Henry Shukman:It doesn't matter that much, you know, we get deeper in it, actually, usually the more still we are. Yeah. So whatever helps us be still is better.

1:40:29Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:I personally like to keep practice as simple as possible with everything I don't like loads of equipment that I need having said that with meditation I did buy a cushion and I think what's really helped for me is that it's a cushion and a color that I really like and so it's helped me almost make the intention that this is an important practice for me in my life and that's when I sit on the cushion, it signals to me and my brain that actually, you're now about to meditate. I don't think you need it. But I personally have found that quite helpful. Yeah, that's lovely.

1:41:06Henry Shukman:So making it work for you is the big thing. Personalize it so that you feel good about it. You know, feel comfortable in your body, comfortable with the fact that you're doing it for whatever that period of time is that you've selected, 30 days, 40 days, whatever it is. You know, so let it be the, let yourself have the setup that you want to have. You know, so whether it's a nice cushion that, you know, you feel good with, a chair you like, a corner of the room that you like, do it the way that feels good for you. Yeah.

1:41:42Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Well, Henry, I'm a huge fan of what you're doing. I think the Way app is absolutely brilliant. And I think it's going to get so many people into meditation. and beyond that I think it's going to help create a kinder and more compassionate world so thank you for all that you do in the world thank you for making the science come to the studio again and thank you for another wonderful conversation

1:42:06Henry Shukman:thank you so much for having me it's a real deep honour and pleasure

1:42:15Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:really hope you enjoyed that conversation do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect.

1:43:00Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday 5. Now, if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change and movement, weight loss, and so much more.

1:43:38Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:so please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week, and please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, That option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. And always remember, you are the architect of your own health.

1:44:21Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:Making lifestyle change is always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.