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How to Ease the Voice of the Inner Critic

Melli O'Brien & Sharon Salzberg

00:00

00:00

Talk

4.6

Duration

Scan the following QR code with your camera app to open it on your phone

How to Ease the Voice of the Inner Critic

How to ease the voice of the inner critic, and draw on your innate capacity for courage, resilience, compassion and kindness when times get tough.

Sharon Salzberg is a world

renowned meditation teacher.

She's also a New York Times

bestselling author and a co-founder

of the Insight Meditation

Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

She's been teaching meditation

retreats since 1974 and has truly

been a pioneer in bringing Eastern

wisdom to the Western world.

She's also, perhaps the world's

leading authority on a particular kind

of meditation practice called Metta

practice or loving kindness meditation.

As well as learning about real

happiness and how to cultivate it from

the inside out, in this masterclass,

you'll also hear about how to ease

the voice of the inner critic and how

to draw on our innate capacities for

courage, resilience, compassion, and

kindness when times get really tough.

In other words, when we need it the most.

Enjoy this masterclass

with Sharon Salzberg.

May it nourish and support you on

your journey into mindful living.

So Sharon, thank you so much for your,

for giving your time and your presence

to, be with us today, the Summit, the

mindfulness summit community and myself.

I really, really appreciate

you giving the time.

I know you're a busy lady.

Well, thank you.

It's delightful to see you and to be here.

So if it's okay with you, I am

just going to dive right in.

And there, in your book, A Heart As

Wide As The World, there's an excerpt

that you wrote that I'd like to read.

It says,

"From my earliest days of Buddhist

practice, I felt powerfully drawn

to the possibility of finding a

way of life that was characterized

by peacefulness and authenticity.

My own life at that time was characterized

largely by fear and confusion.

I felt separate from other people and

from the world around me and even oddly

disconnected from my own experience."

When I read that, I

can resonate with that.

And I think a lot of

other people will too.

So I'm curious if you could

tell us a little bit about how

your journey's unfolded since

that time of fear and confusion.

Well, it's funny.

Anytime somebody reads something

out loud that I've written, I

don't remember any of it, you know?

And I'm like, wow, look

at that, it's interesting.

But I would say yes, when I started my

meditation practice, which was in 1971, if

I was going to choose one word to describe

myself, it would probably be fragmented.

I was quite fragmented.

I didn't really have a sense of who

I was and what would make me happy.

I had like a little instinct and that

was enough because that's what brought

me to India and, you know, had me find

a teacher and find a method of practice.

So that was enough.

But once I began practice, then

of course there've been layers

and layers and layers of changes.

And I was 18 when I went to India and

I wouldn't say that I had really done

a real introspection before then.

So everything was kind of shocking.

SN Goenk, who was my first teacher and

somewhat famous amongst the group of

people, many of whom I'm still very

close to that I met in my first retreat.

For once, having marched up to

him and looking him in the eye and

saying I never used to be an angry

person before I started meditating.

That was exactly how I felt

and I just wanted supported,

which was clearly on him.

But certainly I'd been hugely angry

and I hadn't known it and as I began

to go within all of this came up.

And so I would say that a huge part

of my transformation has been to

allow my experience more in the

spirit of compassion than judgment.

You know?

So, everybody goes through difficult

times and delightful times.

It's just the nature of life.

But how we hold it and how we are with it

is the whole point of the practice anyway.

And so as soon as I traced my sense of

progress from that time that writing

described to onwards would be moving from

incredible self-judgment to a kind of

rueful amusement like, oh, you're back.

Okay.

Right.

That sounds, even as you're

saying that I could, I can sense

a kind of easefulness in that.

I mean, that might sound like a

small thing, but that's a huge thing.

That's kind of the whole tone

of your inner world going

through kind of a seismic shift.

Yeah.

And that's something that

continues to develop over time.

Oh, I think certainly,

you know, and hopefully.

And sometimes people.

Express dismay, you know, about their

own experience or someone else's

experience, but more in the light of, I

don't see why this is still coming up.

I shouldn't still be

having these thoughts.

I shouldn't be having these feelings.

But at this point, you know, I feel so

much more knowledgeable and capable of

meeting, not every moment, cause I'm not

perfect, but, meeting many, many wide

varieties of experience with that that

same kind of awareness and kindness.

And so I just finished reading

your book, Real Happiness, which

I was magnetically attracted to

actually because of the title.

And the reason I was magnetically

attracted to it was because in my

own life, in my own childhood, what

I noticed, at a very young age, for

whatever reason, I realized that yes,

there, we had a lot in, I mean, I didn't

grow up in a wealthy family or anything.

In fact, in Australia, probably we

would call that a poor upbringing,

but it's a Western upbringing, so

we didn't want for anything really.

And so there was a lot of cause for

what we assume would give us happiness.

But what I noticed was is that, I would

probably change the language here a

little bit and I would say, I was going

to say, there weren't many people that

I could see that had found happiness.

And that was really frightening to me.

I thought actually that when

you're a child, you're okay.

But I thought that there's some kind

of insanity that starts to creep in as

people get older and I was very vigilant.

I was like, okay, I have

to watch out for this.

Cause when you get older,

you become different.

So I'll have to be vigilant.

But what I noticed was if I could,

you know, sum it up, was that

nobody I knew and nobody I could

really see as a model around me had

found what I would call a lasting

fulfillment or a sense of wholeness.

They seemed restless, discontented,

and that kind of thing.

So I'm curious to what would you say, what

would you define now as real happiness?

The kind of real happiness that you're

talking about in your book and what has

mindfulness got to do with finding it?

Well, thank you for liking the title.

I didn't choose the title, but

the publisher chose the title.

It worked for me.

But so did I.

I had a little bit of mixed feelings

about it, just in that so many people

define happiness as something superficial,

and this is seeking pleasure or, which

we do anyway, or being kind of happy

go lucky and conflict avoidant and

refusing to see pain or suffering.

And so I was concerned about that.

And sure enough, when I went on the

tour for the book, many people would

say that to me, like, you know, How

can you want to be happy all the time?

It's stupid.

You know, or something like that.

But I was defining happiness, I

would continue to define happiness,

as a sense of inner resource.

And that's where the real comes into.

It's not that other forms of happiness

are unreal, but they're unstable.

Right?

And so like the first interview I had

after the book came out, the interviewer

said to me, are you trying to say that

the kind of happiness I feel when I have

a lovely dinner with my wife isn't real?

And I said, of course, I think it's real.

But if that's your deepest sense of

happiness, you're in trouble because

it comes and it goes, it's impermanent.

And what about, what I said to him

was, what about the night you don't

like your dinner all that much?

Right?

Right.

And I didn't say, but of course

it could mean you may not

like your wife all that much.

Right?

I mean, life is so changeable.

It's so mutable.

And so I think if anything, we

should enjoy those moments more.

If we're more present, more

appreciative, more grateful, it

would be wonderful, but it's not

the deepest happiness we can know.

It's just too unstable.

And so I think about that night, you

don't like anything very much including

yourself, but you can reach a kind of

inner resource that is there for you.

Perspective, peace, presence

kindness, things like that.

And those really do become like resources.

So that in wonderful times, you know,

when great, great things happen,

we don't have to hold on to them so

fiercely, thinking, I can't let this go

by because I'll never be happy again.

And when painful things happen,

we can find that kind of

strength to relate differently.

So it's a powerful, powerful message

to think about where does our

deepest happiness actually abide?

Yeah.

And this is what I find a bit strange,

I guess, in a ways that we never

questioned this from a young age.

We're never taught to.

I mean, it's like it's kind of irrelevant.

In schooling, it's all about how can you

be the most productive citizen possible.

And I think that actually really

aggravates the, you know, how we can

really go on this endless, in Buddhism

there is that term, endless wandering.

Isn't there?

It's just this endless wandering, trying

to find pleasure, trying to find pleasure.

And we can busy ourselves with

these, with constant self-pleasuring.

And it's so easy not to see the fact that

underneath it, there's a lack of just

a simple feeling of easefulness in our

being, a kind of wholeness in our being.

We were not really taught to even

question where happiness really

comes from, what it really is.

But what is your direct experience?

We can talk about your own

personal experience here.

I mean, I have my own descriptive

words for what I'm talking about.

I often just say wholeness instead of...

Wholeness or easefulness.

But what is your direct experience

over time of finding some kind

of lasting background of peace?

How has that unfolded for you?

And what does it look

like on a daily basis?

Like, is it, you don't feel heartache

anymore, you don't feel anger

anymore, you don't feel, or is there

something that carries through?

What does that look like on

a daily basis for you now?

That was a very long-winded question.

That's okay.

I would hesitate to ever describe some

state where something is no longer ever

arising and I think that's unrealistic.

And also I think defies reality, you

know, the, which is always changing.

And so many times people will say

things at the end of the retreat,

for example like, how can I stay as

concentrated as I am here at the retreat?

And I say, it's not going to happen.

Or how can I keep

mindfulness all day long?

I said, that's not going to happen either.

You know, so words like maintain, keep and

stay, I think, I use them too, you know?

But I think it's more that we renew

and can remember how to access

different parts of ourselves, you know,

different layers or different levels.

And so, it's through mindfulness

actually that it happens because.

Or maybe you have a disappointment.

Something didn't go right.

And, you know, your first

impulse is to pile on.

I never do anything right.

It's all my fault.

Anyone else in this position

would have been just fine.

You know.

It's only me and this is going

to last the rest of my life.

And we need some mindfulness to be able to

say, okay, this is what actually happened.

This happens in life, right?

We don't always get what we want.

Things are disappointing

or we disappoint ourselves.

But all that other stuff, it's just

like a story that we're adding onto

it and, and it makes us miserable.

We take things personally.

There's another example that

it's just the unfolding of life.

Like I was just in Ireland.

I just got back from

Ireland three days ago.

And last year when I taught in Ireland

and this man told me at the end of the

course, he told this fantastic story

about traveling in the States and some

incredible airport delay and he ended up

landing at a New York city airport after

midnight, and his luggage had been lost.

He and his friends

missed their connection.

And this woman came out

from some door to help them.

And he said she looked worse than we did.

You know, like it's after midnight,

everyone's miserable and angry.

And he said she said if he happened

to have a traveling banjo with him.

And he saw her name tag said, Irene.

So he said she looked like she

hadn't been serenaded in a while.

So he started serenading her and

singing Good Night, Irene, Good Night.

All these people started coming out of

doors and singing along and then at the

end the woman said, I am the best person

in this company at finding luggage.

I am going to find your luggage.

I'm going to get you a great connection.

You know.

So I saw him again this year and

I told him like four days after

he told that story, I was in

France and my luggage got lost.

And I said, I didn't have a banjo and I

wasn't about to start serenading anybody.

But his example actually was in my

mind, you know, and because we can

take things so personally, like,

you know, I had checked three times

on that journey to make sure my

luggage wasn't going to get lost.

It got lost.

I was, the airline's

out to get me clearly.

And to realize that's just extra

suffering, which we don't need.

We can let go of that.

Yeah.

So in any moment when, you know, so

the idea of this, you know, saying

something like you will get a lasting

sense of ongoing peace and fulfillment

that will stay with you day in, day

out forever is more realistic, you're

saying to say, you know, you have things

that you can call on, you know, deeper

or more expansive or more resourceful

parts of your being that you can call

on at any moment when things are going

well and when things aren't going well.

So it opens up more choice for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think many people find, my

observation is and I think this is

changing now because of the kind of

mindfulness revolution that's happening

which is a really wonderful thing, but

my observation is there's not really

that many people because we're not,

I guess, because we're not taught.

There's not that many people who

really find this deeper sense

of, I guess, that inner resource.

We're not taught to have it.

It seems that human minds don't go

there without a little bit of training,

without a little bit of support.

And maybe in our culture these days,

maybe it's a little bit more aggravated.

Some parts of our mind might

be more aggravated than others.

What do you think are the main things

that are really, what do you think the

things are that are really blocking

most people from having access to those

resources that you're talking about and

finding that sense of real happiness?

Are there mind patterns or...

Yeah, well, I mean, there are probably

many, many mind patterns, you know.

I think partly the idea that

these qualities can be trained

is a little bizarre for us.

You know, that you can train

compassion, you can train love or loving

kindness, you can train gratitude,

you can train these other things.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to us.

And I understand why not.

It sounds a little strange.

You know, like I did a weekend retreat

and I came out compassionate or something.

You know, that's weird.

But, in truth, say in Buddhist psychology,

all of those qualities I mentioned

and many more are considered emergent

properties of how we pay attention.

So we know attention can be trained.

That's the whole purpose

of meditation, right?

So, you know, if you're in an elevator

and somebody is talking to you and you're

not really listening, there is not going

to be much of a sense of connection.

Right?

You're thinking about your

email or something else.

And if you realize that and you

actually just arrive and you listen,

you're fully there, that's the ground

out of which a genuine sense of

connection, even fleeting, can emerge.

And you know, so how do we

pay attention to one another?

And what do we pay attention to?

You know, if we're thinking about

ourselves as an example, at the end of

the day, almost as though to evaluate

ourselves and pretty well, all we think

about it is the mistakes we've made

and what we've done wrong and what we

should have done better, let's just say.

So much so, that your whole sense

of who you are and all that you

will ever be just collapses around

the stupid thing you said at lunch.

You know, it's almost like asking

yourself, anything else happened today?

Like, any good within me?

And you know, some people don't like

that cause it takes intentionality.

It's a stretch.

It's not totally

comfortable for everybody.

But it's not as people fear.

People fear that it's moving from a true

place, like seeing one's problems, to

moving to a phony or hypocritical place.

But it's not.

It's moving from a true place

to another true place that tends

to get very little air time.

Yeah.

You can just change your focus.

Yeah.

So what happens when we change

our focus is that we feel a

different, like our spirits lift.

We feel that sense of

resource or possibility.

We feel connected to somebody else,

if we're focusing on them in that way.

And then there's a very, very

large question of who do we pay

attention to and who do we ignore?

Who do we discount?

Do we look right through?

And so, if we shift the

way we pay attention, these

qualities will come forth.

And so, I think people, otherwise we

do kind of stand aside and thinking,

well, that's just a pipe dream.

That's just a fairytale.

You know, you can't really live

that way, but you can live that way.

And we need the training.

So if I'm hearing you right too,

this is something that's so, think

crucial to really kind of reiterate,

is that one thing that you just said

is that our common assumptions about

where happiness comes from are often

the very thing that keeps us from

it and that happiness is a skill.

Yeah that's so important to know

and so, and really so empowering.

Especially for someone like myself.

There was a time in my life where I never

thought it would be possible just to have

the amount of wellbeing that I have now.

I just, I mean, I really just, if you

hadn't told me, you know, one day you

won't feel like you hate yourself, that

you won't feel this bad, I would have

just said, well, that's, I don't know,

like fairytales are for TV, not, you know.

But I'm really so surprised.

I wish somebody had of

told me this when I was 17.

It would have been...

So I hope there's some 17 year olds

watching this who can hear this message

because it's a powerful message.

Yeah.

And you can, and it's amazing

when you practice this skill,

what can really happen.

It's truly amazing.

I'd like to talk a little bit about

loving kindness because you have

really been a pioneer in bringing

this, the consciousness of loving

kindness kind of into the West.

And the great thing that's happening

right now is because a little bit of

research has come out about it, it's

starting to become a bit of a buzz word.

People are, because I think the problem

with loving kindness is, you know,

Western minds, we find a concept like

that, it just sounds too sappy for us.

So we've got some good solid

research for the Western mind

now, so we can all try it.

But could you give your definition

of what loving kindness is and why

you feel like it's really important

on the path of mindful living?

Well you're right.

A lot of people think it's just

so saccharine and gooey and, you

know, sappy.But that's not from

within.That's the thought or the

assumption and the actual experience

is something very different.

The word loving kindness is the common

translation of a word from Pali, the

language of the original Buddhist

texts, that word is Metta, METTA, and

a literal translation is friendship.

So it's about the art of friendship

with ourselves, and that means

all aspects of ourselves, and

ultimately with all of life.

And so I usually define it as

connection, a profound sense of

connection because it actually doesn't

imply that you like everybody, it

doesn't even mean you like anybody.

But there's this deep knowing our lives

have something to do with one another.

And the corollary understanding is that

everybody counts, everybody matters.

Not everybody's going to be my

best friend, but everybody matters.

And so, our whole way of relating to

ourselves and to others gets first

challenged and then transformed.

And so, I know that one part of the

importance of loving kindness on the path

to mindful living too is that sometimes

we open up awareness, we start to become

more and more aware, more and more aware.

And I think you alluded to this in the

beginning of our chat about how, I think,

it's really common on the path to more

conscious living that we can actually

get quite self-critical and quite judgy.

In fact, I think that's a really big

challenge for spiritual practitioners.

We can get quite judgy.

You know.

We have very strict ideas about how

we should be and how others should be.

And often we can see difficult,

challenging emotions or challenging

behaviors as a sign of absolute

failure, unforgivable failure.

And we can be so hard on ourselves.

And quite usually, I think it ripples

out to other people as well, when

we're that harsh with ourselves.

We kind of tend to get

a bit harsh with others.

So, I'm so glad that this conversation

is coming up more and more about

loving kindness and easefulness

and gentleness and taking it easy

on this path to mindful living.

Having compassion, I

think it's so important.

So yeah.

So I'm glad.

First of all, I want to say

how much I like the word

"judgy," which we don't have.

Judgy.

Well, I have to say as an Australian,

what we like to do is we like to

chop any long words in half and then

put an O or Y on the end of them.

That's why I'm not known as Melissa.

Everybody calls me, Melli.

You've got to chop it in half

and put it a, so judgy, that's

that's my Australian translation.

It was fantastic.

We're alll judgy, which we are.

Yes, we can get judgy.

But this meeting of compassion with judgy,

just diffuses all the aggression and

the tightness and the holding around it.

Doesn't it?

And my experience is that it's a

profound relief to let it all go.

Well really, you know, it's

like your bathed in sunlight.

Yes, you are.

It's a really profound part

of the mindfulness path, even

from the very, very beginning.

Like my first meditation instruction

was sit down and feel your breath.

You know, I've come all the way from

States to India to find a teacher.

I found a teacher.

I found a sitting and the

first instruction was sit

down and feel your breath.

As I often say, my first reaction

was great disappointment.

I thought, feel my breath?

I came all the way to India, where's

the fantastic esoteric technique

that's going to change my whole life?

And then I thought, how hard can this be?

And then it was like, whoa?I had thought

maybe it'd be, what will it be like?

800, 900 breaths before my mind wanders.

And to my absolute astonishment, it

was like one breath or maybe two or

maybe half a breath and I'd be gone.

I'd be way gone, so distracted.

And then comes the magic moment

when you realize you've been gone.

You've strayed from whatever object

you had set out to pay attention to.

And that's the moment really where we

have the chance to be quite different.

So instead of being all judgy and,

you know, getting down on ourselves

or calling ourselves a failure or

whatever, we can practice letting go.

And with some kindness toward ourselves,

we can practice beginning again.

So the very art of the meditation

is enriched by and interwoven

with the skill of loving kindness.

Because without that, you can't

actually let, go and begin again.

You just go on this rant about yourself.

You know, I'm the only one who's thinking.

No one else in the room is thinking.

They don't have any distractions.

I have all these, you know, which first of

all, tends to add some quite considerable

length to the time of the distraction.

And it's so exhausting.

It's so demoralizing.

It's not a way to go on.

It's not a way to learn.

It's not a way to get better at

something or make progress at something.

So I think that's one of the kind

of itty bitty moments of meditation

that has a huge life lesson.

That's a skills training right there.

And it goes right into work with us

and every endeavor that we do cause the

truth, I think, of life is that we're

always having to begin again, that

nothing in life is a straight shot.

We're always having to change course or

adjust or be flexible or find another way

or start over and encourage ourselves.

And that's what we're always doing.

Yeah, I love that you brought that

up and also my experience in learning

meditation in the beginning was

that, that kind of instruction about

friendliness, loving kindness or

self-compassion was a little absent.

It was very much just kind of come

back to the breath, come back to

the breath, come back to the breath.

And what I noticed is that when I

started to introduce that critical

instruction, I felt like my practice

went from being about getting somewhere

or being something more, which had

quite a, you know, there was a lot

of jaw grimacing groom and forehead

grimacing and tension in the shoulders.

I'd kind of get up sweating sometimes.

And then all of a sudden

when I got it, I got it.

And my whole practice became,

this is a time for me.

This is an oasis.

This is a nourishing.

Like the favorite part of

the day, not at all a chore.

This is me becoming deeply in

touch with life and deeply in

touch with myself and it's a joy.

That was how big the

difference was in my practice.

So it became that meditation

is now a love affair with life.

That's right.

Big difference.

Yeah.

So I would love if we could, I

love in these chats if it's not

just all about in us just talking

about it, but actually doing it.

Would you care to maybe guide the whole

community in a practice, a Metta practice?

Sure, sure.

That'd be delightful.

So,we can start.

You can sit comfortably.

And close your eyes or not,

however you feel mostat ease.

One way of doing loving kindness

practice, rather than resting your

attention on the feeling of the

breath, you rest your attention on the

silent repetition of certain phrases.

The phrases are the conduit

for the heart's energy.

They're the vehicle that help

us pay attention differently.

The feeling tone of the

whole practice is generosity.

It's gift giving.

It's generosity of the spirit.

We're offering through the phrases this

sense of connection, of care and so on.

And the first recipient is ourselves.

You can choose three or four phrases.

Common phrases are things

like: May I be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease.

May I be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease.

Live with ease means the things in

our day to day life like livelihood

or family may not be such a struggle,.

May I live with ease.

You can choose these phrases or any

phrases that are big enough, broad

enough, and that makes sense to you

that you can make that offering to

yourself and ultimately to others.

You just repeat the phrases

over and over again, with

enough space and enough silence.

So that it's a rhythm

that's pleasing to you.

This is like the song of the heart.

Gather all your attention

behind one phrase at a time.

You don't have to try to force or

manufacture any special kind of feeling.

The power of the practice is

in that wholehearted gathering.

May I be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease.

The skill's that is really the same your

mind will likely wander quite a lot.

That's okay.

When you realize it, see if you

can gently let go, and return.

And see if you can call

to mind a benefactor.

That's someone who's helped you.

Maybe they've helped you directly,

they shall pick you up when you

fallen down or they've mentored

you or maybe you've never met them.

They've inspired you from afar.

If someone like that comes to

mind, you can bring them here.

Get an image of them.

Say their name to yourself.

Get a feeling for their presence.

And offer the phrases of

loving kindness to them.

And even if the words aren't

perfect, they're the vehicle

for the heart's energy.

May you be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease.

And then a friend.

Let's start with a friend who's

doing pretty well right now.

They may not be perfectly happy, but

at least in some arena of life, they're

enjoying success or good fortune.

If someone like that comes

to mind, bring them here.

You can get an image of them

or say their name to yourself.

See what happens as you offer the

phrases of loving kindness to them.

Do you have a friend who's having

a difficult time right now?

Bring them here and offer the

phrases of loving kindness to them.

And then all beings everywhere.

All people, all creatures,

all those in existence, near

and far, known and unknown.

May all beings be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease.

And when you feel ready,

you can open your eyes.

Rest your gaze.

Thank you for that practice.

I just have one last question.

And that is, as you reflect on your

journey into mindful living over the years

and the decades actually of practice that

you've had, what would be one, would be

your greatest realization or discovery.

Wow.

That's that's the big, last question.

Well, since we've just been

doing loving kindness, I'll

talk about it within that realm.

And I think that actually happened when I

went to Burma in 1985 to do an intensive

period of loving kindness practice.

It was three months.

And like many realizations, it sounds

maybe almost like nothing, like,

oh, yeah, that just makes sense.

So didn't you know that before?

But, but to really deeply know

it and the changes that that

brings versus something else.

So it was something like that loving

kindness and compassion and love

exist as a potential or a capacity

within me, and that other people

may awaken it or threaten it or

whatever, but it's actually within me.

And I realized that before then I kind

of almost thought of qualities like

that like a package that the delivery

person was bringing to my door.

And if they turned around right on

the doorstep, I was out of luck.

It was gone.

There would be no love in my life.

And that I realized, well, that's

totally untrue, that the ability,

the capacity is always mine.

It's within me.

And that, it was a very

empowering kind of realization.

Thank you for sharing that.

And thank you so much.

I just want to take this opportunity

to really, from the bottom of my heart,

to really thank you sincerely for the

work that you do, because it's been,

it's really touched my life and I think

it's, I know that it's touching the lives

of many people, so thank you so much.

And is there anything else that you'd

like to share before we close up?

I don't know.

Listening to you makes me

want to go back to Australia.

You're welcome here anytime.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you again.,

I really enjoyed it.

Thank you.

And to all of our viewers, I

really, really highly recommend

you check out Real Happiness.

You know, I read a lot of

books a lot of the time.

I'm kind of a nerdy reader.

And it's been a while since I've come

across a book, that's really, I found it

a real page turner and I really loved it.

So I highly recommend you check out the

book and Sharon, where can they find

out more about your work if they want to

touch in with more stuff you're up to?

My website is simply SharonSalzberg.com.

Your spell check will likely try

to change Salzburg to S A L Z B

U R G, but it's S A L Z B E R G.

All right, Sharon.

Thanks again.

Go.

Well, my friend and we'll hopefully get

to check in with you some other time soon.

That would be lovely.

Thank you.

Included in

The Mindfulness Summit  null Playlist · 23 tracks

The Mindfulness Summit

Playlist · 23 tracks4.9

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