About
Dan Harris is a meditation teacher and media personality based outside New York City. He began practicing meditation in 2004 after a panic attack while anchoring ABC News. He authored 10% Happier, which expanded into a podcast covering meditation alongside broader topics in health and well-being including work, fitness, relationships, and sleep. Harris is affiliated with InsightLA. He left ABC News in 2021 after more than two decades to focus on his work in the happiness and wellness space.
Teaching focus
Dan Harris's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Insight and Secular traditions. Several threads come up: steady attention to body and breath; the relationship between ethics and meditation; and short, direct teachings rather than long talks. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Dan Harris works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include anxiety, beginners. The bigger move Dan Harris keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Dan Harris's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Dan Harris's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Dan Harris teaches in the Insight and Secular traditions. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: I’m not an unimpeachable guru or perfected being. I still have real challenges, as the aforementioned split with my co-founders amply illustrates. In fact, my whole career as a quasi-self-help-guru began with a coke-fueled panic attack on live TV. In 2004, back when I was an ABC News anchor, I lost the plot in front of 5.019 million viewers of Good Morning America. That experience led me to meditation. I wrote a book about it, 10% Happier, which then became a podcast. Over time, my interests have broadened well beyond meditation. I now cover all aspects of human flourishing, including work, fitness, relationships, sleep, and more. In 2021, after more than two decades at ABC News, I retired to pursue the happiness game full time. I live outside New York City with my wife, son, and a rotating cast of rescue cats. In the Insight stream Dan Harris works inside, the emphasis is on direct attention to body, feeling tone, and mind, alongside the brahmaviharas and an ongoing investigation of how clinging and aversion arise. Talks tend to be conversational rather than scripted, and there's room for sila and ethics to be talked about as part of practice rather than as a separate topic. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Dan Harris's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography.
Lineage
Dan Harris teaches as a lay teacher in the Insight and Secular traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. The Insight lineage in the West runs through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Anagarika Munindra, and Dipa Ma into the founders of IMS, Spirit Rock, and the regional centers, and most contemporary Insight teachers position themselves somewhere in that broad family.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Dan Harris, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Online sittings and talks, mostly in real time with optional recordings, are part of the offering. The container is shaped by InsightLA, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
