The 10% Happier: Meditation for Skeptics app, which I originally covered in Meditating on Meditation Mobile Apps, has been growing by leaps and bounds in both value and content.
In the app, Dan Harris continues to ask in-depth and practical questions. However, now there is even more than one meditation expert giving answers. Originally, it was just Joseph Goldstein. He’s a fantastic, wise, and wonderful person to listen to. Now it gets even better with more teachers entering the scene.
The idea is that each meditation teacher will share valuable insights in their own area of specialization. Here’s an example. In the “10% Nicer” section in day 2, Sharon Salzberg and Dan Harris discuss “the why” of meditating on loving-kindness. In other words, why one would start and keep doing the loving-kindness meditation. Together, Dan and Sharon do a great job emphasizing the value in a person’s own personal experience yet also highlighting the importance that science brings. In his own funny way, Dan points out that meditating on loving-kindness makes you nicer and less of an a-hole.
The video interviews are funny. I cannot emphasize this enough. The comical and frank video interviews between Dan Harris and the meditation teachers have been wonderful. The followup guided meditation recordings have been instructive and highly useful. It’s through these you learn by actually experiencing meditation.
Finally, there is the coach. From my own experience, there is no substitute for having a coach that you can send SMS messages to. Having first started meditating decades ago, I have some experience which seems beyond introductory. Yet, I am amazed at some of the new things I have learned and received clarity on.
To learn more, you might want to listen to the OneMind Meditation podcast titled “How To Be 10% Happier with Bestselling Author Dan Harris.” It does a great job covering the journey of the book author which eventually led to the creation of the 10% Happier app. During the recording, credit goes to Dan Harris for pointing out that the company, Change Collective, which built the app is made up of fantastic people. From my personal interactions with them, I would have to agree.
If you’d like to stay up-to-date, you can follow them on twitter at 10% Happier.
If you become hooked like me, please pay it forward and let others know about it. Just imagine if the world was 10% happier or 10% more at ease and loving.
