Once upon a time there was a girl who got pink-eye and went to the Met. Author and podcaster Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project, Happier with Gretchen Rubin) joins Kelly to talk about how a visit to her eye doctor inspired her to start engaging with her five senses like never before. Gretchen’s intriguing new book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me out of my Head and Into the World is available 4/18/23. Special thanks to Dean Kattari for the wonderful new show open/theme music debuting in today’s episode.

It’s a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.

The social visionary using the new science of mind, a coder’s craft, and age-old wisdom to remake the narrative landscape of our time.