BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism 10% Happier - Book by Nightline anchor Dan Harris

I recently finished reading Dan Harris' 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works (A True Story). Dan is the co-anchor of ABC's Nightline and Weekend Good Morning America, and this book is a memoir of his explorations of meditation, and how it aided him through anxiety brought on from his career. I didn't want to feature this as an article, but I do feel the book is worthwhile, so decided to do a mini-review here.

This is a really great book for anyone who is skeptical about meditation, or who is turned off by the new-age or spiritual language that often accompanies it. Dan studies Insight meditation, which is rooted in Theraveda Buddhism and is a form of Vipassana, but many people who practice it consider themselves secular. He covers a lot of the medical research into the benefits of meditation, as well as organizations that are teaching it, such as the Marines, Target Corporation, and General Mills.

At first Dan is really turned off by the idea of enlightenment, as he considers it a religious fantasy. Over time, he comes to think of it in more secular, neuroscientific terms, based on the brain research about meditation. He posits that enlightenment may be a new brain state - a rewired brain state in which we respond from a different part of our brain - the compassionate, non-ego based portion.

Dan is very funny, and provides a lot of entertaining stories about challenges in his career, and his experiences on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. He also offers basic mindfulness meditation instructions, and an FAQ for beginning (and skeptical) meditators. My only complaint is that at times he is a bit judgmental of spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra. But on the other hand, that may resonate with his target audience.

The title comes from his attempts to explain his reasons for meditating to friends and colleagues. He finds that replying that meditation makes him '10% Happier' intrigues people, because it sounds real and attainable, but also makes it worth it. So overall, this book is a great memoir and introduction to meditation to anyone still on the fence about it, or skeptical.

Dear lisa,

More and more science is proving the benefits of meditation on the human MInd ,Brain etc,
.
Man being man ,what I beleive is that one day these scientists will discover ways or drugs to bring the brain where meditation has brought it.
Could you comment,please.The best exemple is The atomb Bomb

loong
part of the Oneness

Perhaps you are right, although I would prefer it is not drugs myself, too often they have side effects no one anticipates. Did you read my latest post in the Spiritual Practice and Our Brain thread - neuroscientists have developed a way to give meditators real-time feedback on whether they are in the 'self-aware' part of their brain or the 'chattering' part.

However, science still cannot actually account for consciousness/awareness itself. So it may be outside its reach, and the realization of oneself as this may be what awakening is. I don't think it really matters one way or the other, but it is interesting to note.

So my husband and several friends have now read this book and really like it. I think it's especially good for someone who works in a corporate environment, or who has a very demanding career, as he shares a lot of his experiences, and how meditation and mindfulness helped him. It seems that for many people the most useful part of the book is when he talks about a phase in his career when he stopped striving too hard, stopped pushing for new assignments, stopped competing, because he was caught up in the idea of letting go of attachments, of non-attachment.

Over time though, he realized that this itself was an attachment, and that there was a way to engage passionately without harm. This is a balance many of us strive to strike in this world - how to be engaged in the world, and act within it, including to change it, without becoming fixated or fundamentalist in our view of the world, and without harming others along the way. So this part of the book is very insightful.

Dear Lisa,

Still trying to find out why I am 'not meditation prone',I still prefer 'the letting it come to me when I am ready.In the recent year have read a lot,digested a lot,incorporated a lot and living a lot of new ways.The old ways have gone.Did I reprogram myself ,I beleive so .What I have read this year ,what I loved the most wAS UNDERSTANDING OUR MIND.

I am sorry to repeat myself but I teached for 12 years the working of the subconscious,and that book corroborated what I had teached to my groups.

loong

So one way to think about meditation is that it is the direct experience of understanding your own mind. You liked that book because you recognized so many of the things it said within your own mind. The teachings represented in it were largely discovered within meditation - meditation is the tool for exploring the levels of your own mind. The 'concentration' side of it is just the first level.

If you view meditation as a way of exploring the levels of your own mind, and liberating yourself of any delusions that you find at any level, it may be more interesting to you.

Here's a good quote from this book, for those of you still thinking about it:

“Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That is continuous stress.”

Another insight I was reminded of when reading this book was to use the standard of 'is it useful?' when I find myself thinking about the same thing over and over again in daily life. Towards the end of the retreat the author attends, the teacher, Joseph Goldstein, is urging the participants to stay present, to not leave the moment by thinking constantly of what they need to do to get ready to leave the retreat, or what they need to do get done afterwards. But the author points out that if they miss their planes, that's a very real problem, and that we need to think in order to plan and get things done in our lives. Goldstein's response is fair enough, "But when you find yourself running through your trip to the airport for the seventeenth time,perhaps ask yourself the following question: 'Is this useful'?"

I think this really cuts through the repetitive ruminating and worrying we all tend to engage in. The way that we begin to bridge our on-cushion meditation time with our off-cushion daily lives is to ask ourselves 'is this useful?' when we find ourselves engaged in repetitive thoughts. Sometimes it is. Often it's not. And scientists are discovering that the more we repeat a thought, the more we ingrain the related habits into our physical brain, i.e. worrying begets more worrying. To break the cycle, we need to consciously change our thoughts when they aren't useful.

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Lisa -

This sounds like a great book - I've ordered a copy. I ordered a hardcover so I can share it with friends when I'm done. It's amazing that the Kindle version costs nearly as much as a hardcover, when the hardcover involves all the printing and shipping costs. I wish they'd get a handle on that. Kindles should be much cheaper for production reasons. Otherwise they're just making insane profits from them.

I agree wholeheartedly about being present. When I was on my trip to Rome recently, I would sometimes find my mind straying to other things. I deliberately reminded myself, "soak this in. Soon you won't be here any more. Appreciate it while you are right here in this environment."

I'll be interested to hear your opinion Lisa. I see from the Amazon reviews that some people find him arrogant. I didn't feel that way (although certainly he has a newscaster personality), and so far those who I have recommended this book to have liked it. As a seasoned meditator, it won't have anything new in it for you, but I still found it a good read, so hope that you do too.