#113: Zen & the Science of Living Well - Robert Waldinger, MD

27:56Robert Waldinger, MD:Did they talk about themselves and their relationships to themselves much? or they were just, they were proud and had quality relationships? Well, you know, there was less emphasis, particularly in the first generation, less emphasis on relationship with the self. There was some, like we ask people how they thought about themselves, how they felt about themselves. But there's much more emphasis on relationship to self in our modern culture, I think. So people said some about that. And some people, particularly when people were not kind to themselves, like when they had a lot of self-criticism, it would come through in what they would say on study questionnaires or in interviews.

28:46You could really see that. And it was hard to watch. I mean, I think we know many people now in our world everywhere who are really hard on themselves. And actually, one of the things I do as a psychotherapist is I help people first notice how hard they are on themselves, because often they don't even notice. It's just like the air they breathe. And then to try to understand what that's doing to them and how it might be able to change over time, how they can be kinder to themselves.

29:20Robert Waldinger, MD:Yeah, I can't remember which culture it was exactly, but I remember reading that in some of the indigenous cultures that they didn't, they really did not see themselves as separate. So when they would get asked questions about themselves, it was like, it was quite a difficult, a very difficult question to answer because they didn't consider themselves. They basically saw the sort of interdependence of the tribe. Right. I'm just, you know, there's no separate me. It's me in high prevalence. You know, it's interesting, too. The Dalai Lama has said that he didn't encounter the problem of low self-esteem until he came to the West, until he interacted with Westerners.

30:09and perhaps because the emphasis on the self is less strong in some Asian cultures. Now, that said, the Buddha, one of his great insights was that there's no fixed separate self. So obviously, that was a delusion that was pretty common to all of us, you know, 2 ,500 years ago. It's not new. But I think it's particularly common in our very, you know, in our Western culture that emphasizes independence and separateness and self-reliance.

30:45Robert Waldinger, MD:I think I remember reading something similar that he had to kind of be, had to have extra translation to understand like self-loathing. Yeah. And that he could, it was very difficult to comprehend. Yeah, that's quite beautiful and leads well into the next question, actually. So I've heard you say that the Zen tradition says that attention is love. And your science is showing, I think, that attention measurably calms the other person's body and our own nervous system. Would you say that that's the same insight in two different languages? Well, we didn't actually show that in our research that attention calms the body.

31:38Attention can be disconcerting. Like some people, you know, get a little freaked out when you're paying close attention to them. So it varies. But we certainly do find that people want to be seen for who they are, right? They really want and they want people to be interested in them. Right. We all do. And so in that sense, paying attention really does serve as a source of energy and a source of encouragement to other people. You know, it's one of the things actually, you know. You know, almost probably 100 years ago, there was this book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it was, you know, the basic lesson was get people to talk about themselves.

32:28People love to talk about themselves. Right. And and it's because we want to be seen. We want we want each other's attention to who we are.

32:38Robert Waldinger, MD:Yeah, I haven't actually read that book, but it's funny. I seem to work that out naturally quite early. People will feel that they had a great conversation with you if you've asked a lot about themselves. Absolutely. Well, and that's why you're doing what you're doing, right? I mean, you're asking people about themselves all the time. yeah right right um yeah i feel very very lucky that we can come into contact with work like yours and i can sit back and mostly listen yeah yeah in the book you you talk about wiser to watch interpret select engage reflect yeah and so that does read actually very much like a Buddhist instruction.

33:30Robert Waldinger, MD:So is that a coincidence or is that something that your practice helped shape? Well, it dovetails very much with Buddhism. So it is actually social psychology. So in social psychology, they study how we fill in the blanks. We make assumptions all the time. Like when someone says something and you don't understand why, or, you know, the example of your, you know, you get an email from your boss at 5 p.m. saying, come see me at 9 a.m. tomorrow and no other explanation. And the mind goes wild trying to fill in. What's this about? You know, am I going to be fired? Am I going to be praised? What is this?

34:15Right. And so what we see in social psychology is how the mind fills in the blanks And then we act as though we know what's going on, when very often we don't. Well, similarly, Buddhism, meditation shows us how we sit there on the cushion and the mind starts making up stories, right? Often that have no bearing, no relationship to reality, right? And so the Buddha had this insight about how our minds work that modern psychology research also shows. Not a surprise because we're the same human beings. It's the same human life, whether it was the Buddha understanding people or social psychologists understanding people.

35:09Robert Waldinger, MD:It is amazing to see this. I feel there's a new form of psychology in some ways that is, I think, emerging from a combination of these contemplative practices and also what we've found, I think, through rigorous research in the West. Yeah. Yeah, it's a very exciting time. I think you were touching then on a really good example. Could you quickly run through how someone would use the wiser approach in that scenario where the boss sends them an email and the mind starts spiraling? Sure, sure. So what the approach is really to slow everything down, like that the mind immediately tries to fill in the blank, what it doesn't understand.

36:02And so the first step is to slow it down, to sit there and watch what's happening. So, you know, you get the email from your boss and you sit there and you think, okay, what might be going on? And you generate different possibilities. You don't just assume, oh, he's going to fire me, right? Generate possibilities. And then you kind of try to interpret.

36:36So it's the wiser model. Watch, interpret. Meaning try to make sense of, okay, what is happening? And what's the most likely thing that your boss is emailing you about? And you might gather some information, like you might ask your colleagues, have you ever gotten this kind of email from your boss before? And what's it usually about? And so you gather some information, right? And then you think, okay, how should I respond? And that's the S, the select. So you watch, you interpret what's going on, you select a response. So I could respond by saying, I'm sorry, I can't come see you tomorrow. Or you could respond by ignoring the email and pretending you didn't receive it.

37:24Or you could respond by saying, sure, I'll see you tomorrow at nine. I mean, you could, you know, but you pick a response and then you evaluate, well, how did that go? Right. So if I ignored the email, how did that go? If I, you know, and then you reflect on what happened. So often it's sort of like letting yourself see how you respond to a mysterious challenge or an ambiguous stimulus. and then watch how it worked out. So you could walk into your boss's office the next morning, all ready to be fired and angry and ready to justify what a good worker you are and realize, oh my gosh, that wasn't what this was about at all.

38:16And then you reflect back and you say, oh, okay, that wasn't a very helpful interpretation on my part. And it wasn't a very helpful response on my part. Right. So it's just a way essentially of slowing everything down, not jumping to conclusions, and remaining open to a variety of possibilities.

38:40Robert Waldinger, MD:It's an amazing acronym because it is a wise approach and it just fits together so well. Speaking about my own perspective, my predictions about what is going to happen or say an email like that was received, I would tend to lean towards something bad happening. And the volume that I am wrong is preposterous. It's like probably, I'm like an expert at getting it wrong. It's like 99.9%. Well, because the mind is kind of vigilant for what could go wrong, right? The mind, you know, if you think about it, we are taught, well, we evolved probably to scan the horizon for what might harm us or what might go badly.

39:31And that's, you know, on the one hand, that might be more likely to keep us safe, you know, if we're looking for predators on the horizon. On the other hand, it doesn't make us very happy to always be expecting the worst.

39:45Robert Waldinger, MD:it's kind of a it can be a form of self-torture really particularly it often will just not result in good solutions arising even if you have been somewhat accurate about it yeah so there's a question i've been dying to ask you uh equanimity is one of the the great zen virtues and buddhist virtues and non-reactivity acceptance of what is but intimacy i think at least from some perspective could require the opposite um and it could require being moved so i wonder what's your perspective on that. Yeah. Well, my understanding of equanimity is about remaining non-reactive when it's helpful not to react, right?

40:40But that doesn't mean not to be moved. It doesn't mean not to feel anything. One of the common misconceptions of Zen practice, for example, of enlightenment is, okay, I'm just not going to be upset about anything anymore. I'm going to be totally chill all the time. I've never met a human being on the planet who is totally chill all the time, including great teachers, including people who claim to be totally enlightened, right? Nobody's chill all the time. It just isn't how we're built. But I think that equanimity can be not having to react immediately to whatever stimulus it is. Or being able to react if that's the right thing.

41:29So if you're moved by something your partner does and you feel like, oh my gosh, I love you so much. That's not the time to be totally stone faced. And, you know, no, not at all. That's not the time to suppress your feelings. Not at all. But if you start to get really angry at your partner about something, you know, because you feel like they've done something wrong, that to slow it down like the wiser model and to think, OK, wait, maybe why did this happen? And, you know, not to have that degree of equanimity that you don't explode. Right. But you take your time. And so equanimity is not about not feeling.

42:17Robert Waldinger, MD:It's about less reactivity. That's beautifully put. Something that came to mind is one of my teachers used to say, enlightenment is the realization of love. Yeah. I think maybe she went into this connection, this selflessness. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. From the Zen side and from the data side, what's the difference between the kind of solitude that monks would cultivate and the kind of loneliness that your study is measuring? They both involve being alone, but one is, I would say, healing and one is potentially killing people. So how do we tell the difference? Right. That's a really important question.

43:11It's really in the eye of the beholder, right? So if you feel content being alone, you're not lonely, right? And so you can be alone for years, as some monks are, and they're very content. That's not lonely. That's not a stressor. On the other hand, you can be lonely in a marriage. You can be lonely in a crowd. Terribly stressed, right? And you're not even socially isolated. You've got people all around. But it's the subjective experience of not being connected to people in the way that you want to be. That's what loneliness is. And so the only person who knows if you're lonely is you. Right. And so if you want to know if somebody is lonely, you have to ask.

44:09Robert Waldinger, MD:yeah that's that that's a great perspective and in this world of modern distractions like we've become essentially experts at distracting ourselves it's yeah i guess just a little concern of mine if people don't have contact with some form of mindfulness or self-awareness you You might miss that and just, yeah, I think it just points to the importance of this even short meditation practice or being able to just check in. Yeah, you know, and it's really about checking in. Like it doesn't even have to be sitting on a cushion and meditating because that's not for everybody. But finding some way to reflect on yourself and your life.

45:01And, you know, often it's like just being out in nature. I mean, if you just go stand in front of a tree and look at that tree for five minutes, I mean, it's amazing what you end up seeing and how much reflection there is in just like looking at a bit of nature. And it takes you out of the kind of endless thought loops that we get into.

45:24Robert Waldinger, MD:Yeah, that's such a good point, actually. I think I read a quote from Richard Davidson earlier this week, and it said that there is no moment in your life where you couldn't be in awe or you shouldn't be in awe. Yeah. In fact, I just so I just started a new newsletter and the title of the newsletter is Hidden in Plain Sight. because a lot of what is here that can really help us reflect on ourselves and our lives and nature is just right there in front of us every moment, but we don't see it. It's so true and such a beautiful reminder. I don't think it can be reminded enough. And that leads me into your sub stack over the past year has shifted somewhat.

46:12Robert Waldinger, MD:And I would say distinctly to be more contemplative. Yeah. You have, I think, titles like Everyone Wants to be Enlightened, which is an amazing read, The Paradox of Wisdom, and Practicing with the Feeling of Being Wrong. Yeah. So, yeah, something's pulling you there. What? I'd love to know what it is. Well, I think it's, you know, so I'm also a Zen priest, and when you ordain as a Zen priest, It's really just basically a vow of service. It's a vow. It's saying, I want to try to make the world better when I can, where I can. Right. And what I found is that these contemplative practices, like just this, these reflections on life can be so healing for people.

47:08And so my thought is, let me try to put these out into the world in language that everybody understands, that it's not there's no special language. It's not particularly Buddhist. It's not particularly Zen. It's just plain spoken, I hope. And that's what I'm trying to do. And it's really just a way to share the things that have been very healing for me.

47:34Robert Waldinger, MD:So that's what that's what this is about. Wow. It's really surprising and impressive to me. I read one of your articles just before the call and I did notice a shift. And I think it's such a beautiful and powerful thing that written language can do that. I hope. Yeah. I can't confirm. I read a lot of spiritual thinkers, and it isn't just, oh, I get ideas. No, it's really that it makes me feel different, right? And that's what this is about, to really shift how we feel about ourselves and our lives. So I'd love to, on that note, bring it somewhere. that's really practical if there's a say 42 year old male or female that is listening to this on their commute now and they're divorced and there's no close friends and they know that something's off yeah what would you say it's the the first move not the necessarily inspiring move but like a small doable task or thing they can do this week?

48:52Well, first take these moments of reflection because often like your, your, your mind is swirling because you're just upset, you know, bad things have happened in your life and you're ruminating about them. And so when you take a moment just to be present for your breath or to feel how the chair feels under your body as you're sitting in it or whatever it might be, just to get out of the thought loops and into being present in this moment, you can notice, oh my gosh, this is different. It doesn't make everything else go away. It just means that I could come back to this sense of being alive right here in this moment.

49:38And that that's something available to us anytime we need it. And so, you know, actually what I've done in this newsletter, I now have a little practice. You can click on a little video and it's like a three to five minute video. And we're going to have one of those every week. And, and it's just a way to get people to, to see, okay, you can do this for yourself. Like I just walk you through a tiny moment of self-reflection. And so I would say do something like that. Go stand and stare at a flower for five minutes. You know, do that. Right. So that would be a first thing. And then I think another thing that you can do, which I used to think was hokey and now I realize, no, this really works, is you do something like a gratitude practice.

50:34So you think, okay, there's so much wrong in my life right now. Is there anything that's right in my life right now? And what is there that's right? Like, is there a person that I'm so glad that person's in my life? And then you can go through this little mental exercise of what if they weren't in my life? So I'm really grateful for this friend. What if they weren't in my life? And then you do this. It's called a subtraction practice because you take them out of your life and you think, oh, my gosh, you know, there would be so much that was less good in my life if this person weren't here. And so it's not that you force yourself to feel grateful because you can't force that.

51:20But you just imagine what the world would be like if you didn't have this one good thing in your life. And that can really allow us to feel the good stuff when life seems to be so full of problems.

51:36Robert Waldinger, MD:Using that technique, I would say we have the ability to build connection without the actual presence of the person. Yeah. And then if you do start feeling grateful for a person, tell them, right? Oh, good, good. Once you do that, don't just enjoy it yourself. Tell them. That's also a really, really profound tip because I can feel it within myself, some vulnerability and resistance coming up as you say it, which I know would be valuable. Yeah. Yeah. You used the phrase social fitness, which I think is an amazing phrase, in the same way that someone might talk about physical fitness. So for someone that's using technology to stay in touch with people, is there any data on that?

52:34There is actually that how we use technology, particularly how we use social media, makes all the difference in whether we're socially more fit or socially less fit.

52:49Robert Waldinger, MD:Bob just used the phrase social fitness. Relationships as something you actually train, not just something that happens to you. And that's the exact same logic that our founder, Liam McClintock, applies to the inner side of life. His new book, Fit Mind, Four Steps to Lasting Bliss, Neuroscience and Meditation for Daily Life, is a practical science-backed guide to training your mind the way you train your body. It's out on June 2nd and you can pre-order it right now at fitmind.com. All right, back to Bob. If we consume other people's content on social media, if we consume it passively, if we doom scroll through other people's videos, other people's Instagram feeds, we start feeling worse about ourselves.

53:40Because we're all posting our happiest pictures for each other. Like, I don't post the pictures when I wake up in the morning depressed or hungover. I don't do that, right? So it's a totally curated life. And sometimes it's a made-up life, but it's at least filtered, right? And so you can get the impression when you look at other people's lives on social media that they've got life figured out. Everybody's living their best life except me, because I'm not always happy and life isn't always great. When in fact, nobody's always happy and life isn't always great for anyone. It's just that if you just passively consume social media, you will come to feel like everybody else is living their best life except me, right?

54:29But if you connect with people actively, so let's say you reach out to people on social media and make time to get together, whether it's on Zoom or maybe it's in person. Let's say you have a particular condition that most people around you don't have, like a physical condition, but you can connect with a whole group of people around the world who share the same experiences, that can be so empowering, helpful, exciting even. So again, active connection, actively using the digital world can make us happier. And passively using the digital world usually

55:13Robert Waldinger, MD:makes us less happy there is potential upside for the ability to be connected to people more easily but as you say i think it kind of it does affect our internal model of the world and there is this kind of view that perhaps the world outside is perfect and reinforces this this feeling of disconnect and imperfection. Yeah. I think. Yeah. On some level. Last big question. So after 20 years directing the study and decades on the cushion with all the patients, all the data, is there any question that you're left with that hasn't been answered yet? Is there anything that you're excited about in terms of the future research?

56:01Well, there's lots that hasn't been answered. Like much, much more has not been answered than has been answered. You know, Zen emphasizes not knowing, like really letting yourself know how much you don't know. And so, so there's a lot that I don't know. I think the thing that I'm really interested to see is what research is going to show us about the digital revolution and what it's going to mean for us and our relationships with other people and our relationships to work and to, you know, meaning and purpose. I mean, that, you know, because I don't, I mean, there are a lot of people who think this is all going to be bad and I can get very worried about it, like AI, like we're just going to destroy ourselves, right?

56:55There's a lot of worry about that. But the one thing I've seen so far is that we often don't know what the results of these innovations are going to be. We really don't know. And so, for example, before the pandemic, if you had told me that you could do real meaningful psychotherapy on Zoom, I would have said you were totally crazy.

57:22Robert Waldinger, MD:Well, it's happening all the time now. I do it, my colleagues do it, and it really works. So it's just a small example of how what I was so sure of turned out not to be true with the digital world, right? So I think what I'm most interested in is to find out what, how is this all going to work out, you know? And of course, it will never finally be done. It's all just constantly unfolding, But how, you know, how are relationships with AI, how is that going to work out? How is it going to change how we relate to each other? How is AI going to change the way we work, we conduct our days? You know, I just, I'm just fascinated to see what happens.

58:11Robert Waldinger, MD:Me too. And I used to not fully understand the word when these people at the forefront of AI would use the word singularity and event horizon. And now I just think it's such a good description of us just not knowing what is about to happen. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with Shinzen Young's work on, he believes he's got some sort of mathematical formula. for compassion for AI. And he's working, I believe, quite diligently to get that into fruition. Well, I'd be interested in it. I've met him once, but I'm not really that familiar with his work. I just heard it on a podcast relatively recently, but apparently it's making the rounds in the AI circles at the upper echelons of Silicon Valley because it would be quite profound if it works.

59:16Robert Waldinger, MD:So just to wrap up, if it's okay, we've got a few super quick fire questions you can just answer in one sentence or one word. And the first one is, and it doesn't have to be a book relating to anything that we've discussed, but what's one book that changed your life? Well, I think it would be my first book about Buddhism. It was Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, Wherever You Go, There You Are. And it was just the first explanation of a lot of basic Buddhist philosophy. And I just felt it made so much sense. And one word to describe a good relationship. What's a phrase? Where we each feel we can be ourselves.

1:00:09Robert Waldinger, MD:and a little bit cheeky but but boston or kyoto

1:00:17um boston i kyoto is was magnificent we were there two years ago and it was wonderful but you know honestly i would never feel like i was that i belonged in kyoto i just wouldn't the culture is so different that I just don't think I would want to, and I would try really hard, but I don't think I ever belong.

1:00:41Robert Waldinger, MD:I'm sure you'd do a great job of it, but yeah, I understand completely what you mean. And yeah, thank you so much. Like we really, really, the whole team really appreciates the work you're doing. I think it's incredible. It's so inspiring. And yeah, I don't know if it's ever possible, but I would love to come and sit. with you at some point if you do have an open-door policy. Oh, we do. If I'm ever in America. Our group is online. Oh, it's online. Okay, amazing. Monday nights, 7.30 p.m. New York time, Boston time. But you can look if you ever want to. Seriously, there's a website where it will explain how to join us.

1:01:26And it's newtonzen.org, N-E-W-T-O-N-Z-E-N dot O-R-G.

1:01:35Robert Waldinger, MD:Yeah, amazing. Yeah, I've got the URL up, actually. So I will check that. Yeah, you'd be welcome. Anytime. And, you know, and if, you know, I hope maybe I'll get to come back and talk about this new book with you at some point. That would be great. That would be great. Okay. That would be great. Is there any final words, actually, that you want to say about the new book? We mentioned it briefly off air. Well, it's called Nothing to Fix, Zen and the Art of Living Well. And it's just an effort to look at how Zen and psychotherapy and studying lives over many decades all point in the same directions about what helps people thrive as they go through their lives.

1:02:20So that's what the book is about.

1:02:22Robert Waldinger, MD:I cannot wait to read it. I will definitely make sure you get a copy. Oh, please. Thank you. That would be amazing. And yeah, 100%. If you want to come out, we would love to host you again. It's been an absolute pleasure, genuinely. I was so excited to chat. And I think the audience will very much appreciate everything you're doing. Yeah. What a pleasure to meet you. It's really great. This is the best end of the internet, I hope. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is active connection, right? Thank you so much for listening to the episode. If you enjoyed it, please, if you could give us a like, a subscribe, and hit the notification bell, that would really help us out.

1:03:06Robert Waldinger, MD:Or just share this episode with a friend, share the course with a friend. Anything would go such a long way. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you soon.

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