Podcast started in 2013 to tie in with his 2014 book on meditation, Waking Up. :) He’s had a large interest in meditation since ~1986:
At age 19, he and a college friend tried MDMA, better known as ecstasy, and the experience altered his view of the role that love could play in the world. (“I realized that it was possible to be a human being who wished others well all the time, reflexively.”) He dropped out of Stanford, where he was an English major, in his sophomore year and started to study Buddhism and meditation. He flew around the country and around the world, to places such as India and Nepal, often for silent retreats that went on for months. [… H]e did work for one memorable three-week stint in the security detail assigned to the Dalai Lama.
Podcast started in 2013 to tie in with his 2014 book on meditation, Waking Up. :) He’s had a large interest in meditation since ~1986: