I used to watch Dan Harris on morning TV and was unaware he had gone through a panic attack on live TV.
I finally got around to reading this book after it was selected for this month’s book club.
As is customary in self-help books, Dan Harris delves into his background and biography. He explains his foray into Journalism and his assignments to warzones post 9/11. His reporting experiences contribute to the PTSD, drug experimentation, compounding effects of psychological trauma, and the lead-up to his panic attack.
He also specialized in reporting on religious topics across the United States. His initial reporting was quirky and sensational, but he later shifted to conducting in-depth interviews with individuals involved in various religious movements. These included Ted Haggard, Eckhart Tolle, and Deepak Chopra.
While covering religious stories, he was introduced to meditation. Dan Harris held strong atheist beliefs and was thus highly skeptical about meditation. The book covers several discussions with his therapist and conversations with his friend Epstein on a more secular approach to meditation that softens his stance on meditation.
He eventually attends a two-week meditation retreat that makes him a convert to meditation.
Here are three takeaways from this book
- RAIN
- Hide the Zen
- Is this useful?
RAIN
RAIN is an approach used when dealing with anger or other emotions that may arise in uncomfortable situations.
R: recognize
A: allow
I: investigate
N: non-identification
The first 3 (recognize, allow, and investigate) are self-explanatory.
The last one, non-identification, involves detaching oneself from the emotion at hand and instead observing it impartially.
“non-identification”—meant seeing that just because I was feeling angry or jealous or fearful, that did not render me a permanently angry or jealous person. These were just passing states of mind.
The practice of RAIN makes a person more mindful of the emotions occurring at the moment. It causes a person to RESPOND to a situation rather than REACT to it.
What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it.
Hide the Zen
As Dan Harris transforms into a meditator, he becomes non-confrontational and practices compassion.
Whilst this was generally good, he becomes detached and less aggressive about this career to the point that he stops advocating for himself. He starts stagnating and losing out on career-advancing assignments.
This starkly contrasts with the Dan Harris pre-meditation, where he was constantly stressed about getting the best assignments and always pleading with the executives.
He gets a reality check when his new Boss informs him that he is too zen.
Upon meeting with his friend and meditation mentor Goldstein, he is advised to “Hide The Zen.”
“There’s a certain kind of aggression in organizational behavior that doesn’t value that—that will see it as weak. If you present yourself too much like that, people won’t take you seriously. So I think it important to hide the Zen, and let them think that you’re really someone they have to contend with.”
Some other quotes from the chapter on hiding the Zen that resonated with me -
The Sufi Muslims say, “Praise Allah, but also tie your camel to the post.”
“I said be simple, not a simpleton.”
Is This Useful?
On Day 9 of his meditation retreat, Dan Harris learns a valuable piece of information regarding overplanning-
Fair enough, he concedes. “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’?”
It is ok to over plan and overthink - but only until it isn’t practical. This may seem like common sense advice. Nevertheless, it bears repeating and reminding all the time.
Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.