You're Gonna Be Alright No Matter What: On Facing Anger, Aging, and Loss With Humor and Grace | Sylvia Boorstein

**Dan Harris** (0:03)
Hey, welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Today, we have a fantastic conversation with a legendary Buddhist teacher, Sylvia Boorstein. As of this taping is about to turn 90 We'll have turned 90 by the time this thing posts. And we talk about how not to miss your life, how to accept life's ups and downs with a measure of grace, the best way not to be depressed, how to talk to yourself in moments of anger, and the fact that we're all going to be all right. It's an incredible conversation. Just a little bit more about Sylvia before we dive in here. She is a co-founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She has written five books, including Pay Attention for Goodness Sake, It's Easier Than You Think, and Happiness is an Inside Job. We'll be right back with Sylvia Boorstein.
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Sylvia Boorstein, welcome back to the show.

**Sylvia Boorstein** (3:27)
I'm glad to be here, Dan.

**Dan Harris** (3:28)
Let me start with the obvious question. So you're, as we sit here today, a few weeks away from your 90th birthday.

**Sylvia Boorstein** (3:36)
I am.

**Dan Harris** (3:37)
You've been practicing meditation and Buddhism for?

**Sylvia Boorstein** (3:41)
50 years.

**Dan Harris** (3:42)
50 years.

**Sylvia Boorstein** (3:43)
I happen to know that my first retreat was on July 7th, 1977, which if you write to July as 7, comes out 7777, which in a gambling city would be a very good number. I think it was auspicious, so I like to tell people that.
But yes, and so this is 26, in 27, it will be 50 years.

**Dan Harris** (4:12)
So you're coming up on 90 years on the planet and 50 years practicing the Dharma.

**Sylvia Boorstein** (4:17)
Yeah.

**Dan Harris** (4:18)
So I'm just curious, what's on your mind given all of that? Like where's, what's up for you in your practice and in your life at this juncture?

**Sylvia Boorstein** (4:26)
I thought about writing a book. I might or might not try to do it. But if you write a book, you have to plan two years. And there are all those bad jokes about at my age, I don't buy green bananas and all that kind of stuff. I don't start to write a book and I don't know if I'm as witty or as anything as I used to be. But it's different now to be writing a book. What I started to say was my first book was called, It's Easier Than You Think, The Buddhist Way to Happiness. And I thought I would write a book called, It's Harder Than You Can Imagine, Coping With Being Seriously Old, or Just Being Seriously Old. Because all of a sudden, the skills and the competencies and all the things that you've honed and accumulated and guarded and taken vitamins to maintain and who knows what, all of a sudden they start not working anymore.