Buddhist Strategies For Reducing Everyday Addictions (To Your Phone, Food, Booze, And More) | Sister Dang Nghiem

10% Happier with Dan Harris

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Dan Harris, Health & Fitness, Mindfulness, Dharma, Mental Health, Meditation

4.6 • 12.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Buddhist doctor/nun on how we’re all addicted to something—and how to reduce craving.

Sister Dang Nghiem, MD, (“Sister D”) was born in 1968 in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. She lost her mother at the age of twelve and immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen with her brother. Living in various foster homes, she learned English and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California – San Francisco. After suffering further tragedy and loss, she quit her practice as a doctor to travel to Plum Village monastery in France founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where she was ordained a nun in 2000, and given the name Dang Nghiem, which means adornment with nondiscrimination. She is the author of a memoir, Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010), and Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015).

This episode is part of our monthlong Do Life Better series.

We talk about:

Sister D’s Buddhist version of the 12 step program, which is a combination of two canonical buddhist lists: the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path
How willpower doesn’t fit into the Buddhist path of understanding and working with addiction
How to change addiction at its root
Practical applications of mindfulness
Self-compassion
The importance of social support
Her thoughts on our relationships to our phones
And more

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free right now.
0:04.7	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:13.7	This is the 10% Happier podcast.
0:16.8	I'm Dan Harris.
0:28.8	Thank you. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today we're talking about Buddhist strategies for reducing your
0:34.8	everyday addictions to your phone, food, alcohol, and more.
0:38.9	As always on this show, and as always within a Buddhist context, when we talk about addiction,
0:44.8	it doesn't just mean full-blown addictions, although, of course, it does include those,
0:48.8	but it also means our everyday cravings.
0:51.5	One technical definition of addiction is continued use despite adverse consequences.
0:59.7	And think about it, how many things in your life fit the bill for that? In this episode,
1:04.3	we've got a Buddhist nun who's also a medical doctor who's going to use her combined training
1:09.6	to help us turn down the volume on our
1:11.4	everyday addictions. This is part of our ongoing New Year's programming. Every week during January,
1:17.2	we are identifying one of the major resolutions that people tend to make this time of year,
1:21.7	and then we're approaching that resolution with our signature mix of ancient wisdom and modern
1:26.5	science. This week, it's Addictions.
1:29.0	If you missed it, go check out Monday's episode with Dr. Jed Brewer, my old friend,
1:33.3	who's a neuroscientist and addiction specialist.
1:36.2	Today, though, it is Sister Dongnyem, who goes by the name Sister D, which is obviously easier to pronounce.
1:43.9	Sister D is a nun in the plum village tradition founded by Zen Master Ticknot Han.
1:48.4	This is her second time on the show.
	...

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