Ten Percent Weekly
Ten Percent Happier’s free weekly newsletter, the Ten Percent Weekly, features original essays by our teachers on happiness, meditation, and the mindful life, plus updates on new content in the app, new podcast episodes, and upcoming events. Enter your email to subscribe – your address will not be shared with anyone else.
Featured Weekly Articles
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World Meditation Week: 7 Days of Practical Meditation
May 13th is your starting line for a deeper connection with meditation, featuring 7 days of themed explorations led by incredibly inspiring teachers.
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The Power Of Equanimity
In today's society, “equanimity” probably doesn't describe what people are striving for. But what power does embracing equanimity through mindfulness hold?
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Accepting Life’s Ups and Downs
Recently, we asked Ten Percent Happier app subscribers what topics they most wanted to hear about. One of the responses we received the most, in various forms, was “how can I be more accepting of life’s ups and downs?”
To me, this simple-on-its-surface response says quite a lot about the relationship of meditation to, well, just plain advice. And why, at least in my experience, meditation has a lot more to offer.
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Write a Forgiveness Letter
Forgiveness isn’t about excusing someone else’s behavior. It’s about letting go of resentment.
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The Moldy Fridge of Shame
What can you do if you get walloped by an attack of shame? Seized by the talons of a poisonous inner critic? When you’ve had a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,” as the classic children’s book puts it? These are my favorite tweaks:
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No Mud, No Lotus
The lotus flower, a symbol of awakening in Buddhist and other spiritual traditions, blooms in the muckiest, muddiest swamps. Its roots begin under the swamp water and its buds reach their way to the surface where they burst forth into stunning pink or white flowers. If you want the beauty of the lotus flower, there is no getting around the mud.
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Pain x Resistance = Suffering
This may sound weird, but meditation has taught me that you can have joy even when you have pain.
In the beginning, most of us start meditating to eliminate our pain. I know I did. I wanted to get rid of my sadness and fear. But meditation doesn’t eliminate pain -- it eliminates suffering.
What’s the difference?
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Meditation and Neuroscience: Unlocking the Science Behind Mindfulness
Studies in the field of neuroscience have shed light on the tangible effects meditation can exert on the brain and even help with reducing chronic pain. From the first studies in Western scientific literature in the 1950s and 60s to the present, scientists have investigated meditation’s effects on the body and mind.
All Articles
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Why Meditate?
No matter how long you’ve been meditating, or even if you’ve never meditated at all, it’s inevitable that you’ll ask, especially at a difficult moment: what’s the point? Why meditate?
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How to Meditate In Summertime
Summer! The perfect time for barbecues, beaches, and books you don’t tell other people you’re reading. Not necessarily the perfect time to meditate.
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Catching Doubt Before It Catches You
As with any long-term habit – a diet, an exercise routine, working on that novel – meditation has its ups and downs. In fact, there’s often a familiar pattern: struggles but enthusiasm at first, followed by some “aha!” moments when you finally figure out what you’re doing, and, eventually, some plateaus and troughs along the way when you don’t seem to be making “progress,” whatever that is, and wonder again why you’re carving out time every day to sit and do nothing.
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Responding to Life, Instead of Reacting to It
You may have heard meditation called a “practice.” As in, “I practice mindfulness.” “I practice Zen.” And so on.
But this alone is a very narrow understanding of practice. Really, the point of practicing meditation is to practice being human: the way we see ourselves and the world, the way we form intentions and ideas, the way we speak to each other, the way we act, the way we make our living, the way we apply ourselves. Practice involves far, far more than just meditating.
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How Nature Changes the Mind
Summertime, especially around the Fourth of July, is a time many of us in North America spend outdoors. It actually can be a hard time to sit indoors and meditate, because it’s so beautiful outside. Fortunately, being in nature can, itself, be a doorway to a valuable and refreshing capacity of mind that I call “natural awareness.”
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Enjoy the View—Not the Commentary
Here’s the scene: I am standing on top of an overlook in the foothills of the Green Mountains. I can see a 180-degree vista to the West that features the Adirondacks, tinged in pink, as the sun gets ready to set. Vermont’s famous Camel’s Hump sits majestically to the south.
My mind, however, is not appreciating this beautiful experience, at least not consistently so, because I am frustrated and disappointed in myself. I want to get some pictures of this awesome scene, but I have forgotten my phone and thus have no camera.
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The Risk of Honesty
A friend of mine works with a writer who constantly misses deadlines. In terms of work, it’s actually not that big of a deal, because my friend knows this about the writer, and course-corrects by giving him deadlines that are weeks prior to when my friend actually needs something turned in.
The challenges arise not because of the lateness, but because the writer can’t seem to accept this shortcoming about himself. He writes long emails with excuses as to why he’s late again—imaginative stories that my friend knows aren’t true.
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How to Not Meditate
For years, meditation was one more activity I packed into my busy day.
It was yet another thing to check off my to-do list, like going to the gym or buying groceries. I would skid into my meditation session, set a timer, and dutifully bring my attention back to my breath, again and again, with a kind of grim determination. It was really not that much fun at all.
I was, in other words, bringing my everyday habits to the cushion. My overdrive, my overachieving, my over-everything.
Then, a few years ago, I hit a wall.
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Is Your Mind an Amusement Park?
When some people hear about meditation, they may imagine that it’s a cool, calm chill-out with no distracting thoughts or feelings disturbing the Zen.
And then, since that’s not what anyone actually experiences, lots of people become convinced that they can’t meditate because their minds are so busy and distracted.
The truth is, though, distractions happen! Whether out in the world or seated in meditation, the mind will pretty much always find something to do - and it’s not always going to do the thing we might hope.
What can you do?
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The Case for Being Interrupted
Interruptions can be welcomed as a part of our mindfulness practice.
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Mindfulness vs Meditation: What's the Difference Between Meditation and Mindfulness?
Mindfulness vs Meditation: Explore the difference between meditation and mindfulness at Ten Percent Happier. Learn about meditation and mindfulness exercises here.
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Why I Meditate
I don’t know what I’d do without a meditation practice.
These days, after many years, it’s a regular habit. But it wasn’t always that way. For years I tried to cultivate a regular practice, but I found it hard to stick to a routine. It was easier to hit snooze, or get up off my cushion before the timer went off, or skip the weekly gathering at the Zendo.
But I had an incentive: I was a hot mess.
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Change Your Posture, Change Your Mood
According to neuroscientific research, you can change your mood simply by changing your body posture.
Of course, everyone knows that body posture can reflect our emotions. Picture an Olympic sprinter crossing the finish line with their arms in the air, and head thrown back in celebration. Or picture the audience in a horror movie, instinctively cringing and curling up when something goes bump in the night.
But can it also work the other way? Can body posture influence our emotional state, as well as reflect it?
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World Meditation Week: 7 Days of Practical Meditation
May 13th is your starting line for a deeper connection with meditation, featuring 7 days of themed explorations led by incredibly inspiring teachers.
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How to be a Better Listener
“You’re not listening!” my friend Jeremy shouted in frustration.
We were standing in his kitchen and Jeremy was upset. Though I can’t remember the details, what I do remember is that he was right: I was only half-listening. I was waiting for him to finish so I could explain my perspective. Even though I was completely silent, making eye contact, and hearing every word, Jeremy could sense that I wasn’t really taking it in. I was building my case, preparing to defend myself.
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