The time the Dalai Lama went bowling in their basement, the time a stranger showed up with exactly the $15,000 they were missing — and more behind-the-scenes stories from 50 years of IMS.

In 1975, a handful of young Americans fresh back from years of intensive practice in India and Burma pooled together $150,000 they didn't have and bought a former Catholic novitiate in rural Massachusetts. Fifty years later, the Insight Meditation Society has become one of the most consequential institutions in the history of Buddhism in the West — the place where Jon Kabat-Zinn had the idea that became Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and where, as one longtime yogi put it, the whole thing has run for half a century "without any adult supervision whatsoever."

For IMS's 50th anniversary, Dan sits down with four of its founding teachers — Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Jacqueline Mandell — along with Steven Schwartz, who helped get the organization built in the first place. Together they trace the founding story, the early years of $25-a-month stipends and "window wars," the accidental birth of the mindfulness movement, and what they hope IMS looks like 1,000 years from now.

For more on the Insight Meditation Society, including how to support their new retreat center, you can visit dharma.org.

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Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

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Plus: the four questions the Buddha said you should ask before you speak, the truth about gossip, and what to do when compassion and honesty pull in opposite directions.

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is among the first to bring mindfulness & lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture fifty years ago.

In this episode we talk about:

• What the Buddha actually said about how to talk to people, and why almost none of us were ever taught it
• The four questions to ask yourself before you open your mouth
• Whether white lies are ever okay
• The difference between being kind and being nice
• Is it ever okay to gossip?
• Why shame is the enemy of change, and what "right" in right speech actually means
• How to remember any of this when you're mid-conversation with a difficult person

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Why ruminating after hours is unpaid overtime — plus, how to handle bad bosses, beat the Sunday scaries, and actually recharge.

Dr. Guy Winch is an internationally renowned psychologist and bestselling author who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His 3 TED Talks have garnered over 35 million views and his science based self-help books have been translated into 30 languages. His newest book is: Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why work stress is at an all-time high — and what the pandemic permanently broke

• How to tell the difference between regular stress and full-blown burnout

• Why ruminating about a bad day at the office is unpaid overtime — and how to stop

• Techniques for coaching yourself through hard moments without lying to yourself

• How to actually recover after work — and why collapsing on the couch isn't the same as recharging

• How to set limits with a difficult boss without torching the relationship

• A practical tool for mapping the real stress in your job

• What to do with the Sunday scaries — and one scheduling trick that actually works

• How chronic work stress quietly erodes your ethics over time

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Additional Resources:

• Dear Therapists

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here!

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On nuclear fusion, solid-state batteries, driverless cars, and other innovations — and why, for one cynical disaster reporter, meeting the scientists building them changed everything.

Rob Marciano is the national weather correspondent for CBS News and a Cornell-trained scientist with more than 30 years in television news. A former co-host of Weekend Good Morning America at ABC News, he's also the co-author, alongside physicist James Trefil, of The Next Big Thing: Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow.

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Plus: how trauma rewires the brain, why connection is the most powerful regulator, and small practices that actually work.

Dr. Bruce Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network and a Professor at the School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria Australia. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on development has informed clinical practice, programs and policy across the world. Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, has been translated into 26 languages and has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for over 100 weeks after becoming #1 on the list in April of 2021.

In this episode we talk about:

• EMDR and the importance of moving your body

• The hardest type of trauma to deal with

• The perks of getting in touch with the fact that, to quote Dr. Perry, everyone is wandering around in a fucking fog...and how this perspective helps us become more generous in our lives.. Both toward ourselves and others.

• How it's never too late to heal trauma

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Additional Resources:

• The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog

• Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here!

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Why talking to your boss, your doctor, or anyone with power puts your brain on high alert — and what a Stanford psychologist says to do about it.

Claude M. Steele is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of a new book, Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why talking across difference is so stressful, even when nobody's being bigoted
• What's actually happening in your brain during an awkward cross-cultural moment
• The surprisingly simple thing that makes critical feedback land or fall flat
• How to reduce tension when you're the one with power (and what to do when you're not)
• A three-part framework for building trust across any divide

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Say "no" more, audit your calendar, rewire your inner critic, and keep the promises you make to yourself.

Robin Arzón is Vice President of Fitness Programming and Head Instructor at Peloton, a 27x marathon and ultra-marathon runner, three-time New York Times bestselling author, the founder of Swagger Society and host of Project Swagger.

In this episode we talk about:

• Redefining hustle
• Intensity vs. volume
• Using jealousy as data
• Psychological distancing and self-talk
• Why motivation is a myth
• Lowering the barrier to entry
• Planning for the messy middle
• Breathwork as a cheat code

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This episode is sponsored by: BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough delivers seven forms of magnesium to support your nervous system, stress response, and daily recovery. Try it risk-free with their 365-day guarantee — head to bioptimizers.com/happier and use code HAPPIER for 15% off plus free gifts at checkout.

Eight Sleep: The Pod automatically heats and cools your bed, tracks your sleep without a wearable, and their testing shows users get up to 34% more deep sleep. Use code DanHarris at eightsleep.com/danharris for up to $350 off the Pod 5, with a 30-day trial if it's not for you.

Why your body is the fastest way to change your mental state — and how friction, protein, and resistance training make it work.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is a physician and the founder of what she calls Muscle-Centric Medicine. She's the New York Times bestselling author of Forever Strong, and her new book is The Forever Strong Playbook.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why muscle is the organ of longevity
• The three stress responses and the courage response
• Why distraction is the biggest health crisis
• Protein and why most of us aren't eating enough of it
• How to think about intuitive eating
• Minimum effective dose for exercise
• Recovery as you age
• The case for adding more friction to your life

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This episode is sponsored by:

BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough delivers seven forms of magnesium to support your nervous system, stress response, and daily recovery. Try it risk-free with their 365-day guarantee — head to bioptimizers.com/happier and use code HAPPIER for 15% off plus free gifts at checkout. Eight Sleep: The Pod automatically heats and cools your bed, tracks your sleep without a wearable, and their testing shows users get up to 34% more deep sleep. Use code DanHarris at eightsleep.com/danharris for up to $350 off the Pod 5, with a 30-day trial if it's not for you.

No-nonsense advice on sleep, diet, exercise, social connection, keeping your brain sharp, and not being a schmuck.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD is a Vice Provost and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. A bioethicist, health policy expert, and oncologist, he was one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act. He is a regular guest on CNN and MSNBC and frequently contributes to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. His new book is Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why longevity shouldn't be the goal — and what to aim for instead
• The single most powerful intervention for a long, healthy life (hint: it's not exercise)
• The neuroscience of friendship: how social connection literally changes your brain and body
• Six practical, science-backed rules for living well — from an oncologist with nothing to sell
• Why ultra-processed food and sugary drinks are doing more damage than almost anything else
• The case for eating ice cream (yes, really) — and why moderation is the new discipline
• What retirement does to your brain, and how to protect your cognitive function as you age
• ChatGPT as a diagnostic tool — and what a doctor actually thinks about that
• Why the wellness industrial complex is making you worse, not better

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To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

This episode is sponsored by:

BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough delivers seven forms of magnesium to support your nervous system, stress response, and daily recovery. Try it risk-free with their 365-day guarantee — head to bioptimizers.com/happier and use code HAPPIER for 15% off plus free gifts at checkout. Eight Sleep: The Pod automatically heats and cools your bed, tracks your sleep without a wearable, and their testing shows users get up to 34% more deep sleep. Use code DanHarris at eightsleep.com/danharris for up to $350 off the Pod 5, with a 30-day trial if it's not for you.

Plus: Hyperbaric chambers, red-light therapy, mRNA, cancer research, and the surprising importance of boredom and friction.

Kara Swisher is a veteran tech journalist, host of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway, and one of the most influential voices covering the intersection of technology and power. Her new CNN documentary series, Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever, takes on the longevity industry — separating genuine medical breakthroughs from the pseudoscience being sold to anyone with a credit card and a fear of aging.

Kara Swisher has been covering Silicon Valley longer than most of its billionaires have been rich — and she's watched them turn a simple fear of death into a multi-billion dollar industry of expensive, largely unproven interventions. After her own stroke at 49, she decided to investigate: what actually works, what's a grift, and what does the science really say about living longer? The result is a new CNN documentary series that's part BS-detector, part genuinely hopeful look at the medical breakthroughs that could change everything. This conversation covers both.

We talked about:

• Why biohacking culture is basically a men's eating disorder dressed up as science
• Bryan Johnson, Peter Attia, and what Silicon Valley gets catastrophically wrong about longevity
• The supplements, therapies, and interventions that are mostly hype (peptides, hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, full-body scans)
• What VO2 max actually measures — and why it's one of the few metrics worth tracking
• GLP-1 drugs: the real promise behind the Ozempic headlines
• The mRNA breakthroughs that could produce a pancreatic cancer vaccine
• Why your relationships are a more powerful longevity drug than anything you can buy
• The case for boredom, friction, and putting your phone down
• How thinking about death every day can make you happier and less afraid

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This episode is sponsored by: Eight Sleep: Use code DanHarris at eightsleep.com/danharris for up to $350 off the Pod 5, with a 30-day trial if it's not for you. Rosetta Stone – Get 20% off your Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when you sign up today. Visit rosettastone.com/happier ButcherBox: New listeners can get free ribeyes or top sirloins for a year — or ground beef and bacon for a year — plus $20 off their first box at butcherbox.com/happier

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Lessons learned from 12 years of serious meditation.

Diego Perez is a meditator and #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known by his pen name, Yung Pueblo. His writing focuses on the power of self-healing, creating healthy relationships, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to burn off your mind's conditioning
• The suffering that comes from clinging in a world characterized by relentless change
• What selfless listening is, and how to do it
• The liberation that comes from equanimity
• Some of the incredibly valuable lessons he's learned from 12 years of meditation
• How to make better decisions for your future self
• How to have boundless compassion without being a pushover
• Why being able to see perspectives outside of your own is a sign of intelligence and mental strength
• And much more

Related Episodes:

• Jack Kornfield & Yung Pueblo On: How To Meditate When You're Freaking Out, the Limits of the Thinking Mind, & Balancing Self-Interest with Compassion
• The Dharma of Instagram

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