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Sam Harris says that stress-reductive benefits of meditation are rather trivial compared to the insights one can discover about the nature of the self. And though such mindfulness practices can and should be approached secularly, the business of religion is all too often a forced and unnecessary part of the parcel. Harris is the author of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (http://goo.gl/2N8CKv)
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Transcript: Mindfulness is very much in vogue at this moment as many of you probably know. And it’s often taught as though it were a glorified version of an executive stress ball. It’s a tool you want in your tool kit. It prepares you emotionally to go into a new experience with a positive attitude and you know you’re not hauling around baggage from the past. And that’s true. Actually having focus and having your mind in the present moment is a little bit of a superpower in situations that we’re all in from day to day. But that actually undervalues what mindfulness really is and its true potential. It’s more like the large hadron collider in that it’s a real tool for making some fundamental discoveries about the nature of the mind. And one of these discoveries is that the sense of self that we all carry around from day to day is an illusion. And cutting through that illusion I think is actually more important than stress reduction or any of the other conventional benefits that are accurately ascribed to mindfulness.
The enemy of mindfulness and really of any meditation practice is being lost in thought, is to be thinking without knowing that you’re thinking. Now the problem is not thoughts themselves. We need to think. We need to think to do almost anything that makes us human – to reason, to plan, to have social relationships, to do science. Thinking is indispensable to us but most of us spend every moment of our waking lives thinking without knowing that we’re thinking. And this automaticity is a kind of scrim thrown over at the present moment through which we view everything. And it’s distorting of our lives. It’s distorting of our emotions. It engineers our unhappiness in every moment because most of what we think is quite unpleasant. We’re judging ourselves, we’re judging others, we’re worrying about the future, we’re regretting the past, we’re at war with our experience in subtle or coarse ways. And much of this self-talk is unpleasant and diminishing our happiness in every moment. And so meditation is a tool for cutting through that.
It’s interrupting this continuous conversation we’re having with ourselves. So that is – that in and of itself is beneficial. But there are features of our experience that we don’t notice when we’re lost in thought. So, for instance, every experience you’ve ever had, every emotion, the anger you felt yesterday or a year ago isn’t here anymore. It arises and it passes away. And if it comes back in the present moment by virtue of your thinking about it again, it will subside again when you’re no longer thinking about it. Now this is something that people tend not to notice because we rather than merely feel an emotion like anger, we spend our time thinking of all the reasons why we have every right to be angry. And so the conversation keeps this emotion in play for much, much longer than its natural half-life. And if you’re able, through mindfulness to interrupt this conversation and simply witness the feeling of anger as it arises you’ll find that you can’t be angry for more than a few moments at a time. If you think you can be angry for a day or even an hour without continually manufacturing this emotion by thinking without knowing that you’re thinking, you’re mistaken. And this is something you can just witness for yourself. This is – again this is an objective truth claim about the nature of subjective experience. And it’s testable. And mindfulness is the tool that you would use to test it.
One problem is that most of the people who teach mindfulness – and I know many of the great vipassana teachers in the West and in the East and I have immense respect for these people. I learned to meditate in a traditionally Buddhist context. But most people who teach mindfulness are still in the religion business. They’re still – they’re propagating Western Buddhism or American Buddhism. [TRANSCRIPT TRUNCATED]
Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler, Elizabeth Rodd, and Dillon Fitton
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Mindfulness is witnessing your thoughts without identifying as being your thoughts. Cool. But this guy also believes that the self is an illusion. So you aren't your thoughts but the one who witnesses them is an illusion. Wtf? Are we even alive?
Thumbs up if Mitch McConnell sent you here.
nice talk
Lol no anger but . Kijda.. what's. The word.m OPPOSITION
Just a question ???
May I ask with answer to this. Is this truthfully to help) people ar all or self gain . Collective COVERT munipulation to Be world dominated. In your small . Branch from the collective?.. just asking. No accusation here
Goal would be what sam elite collective mass control self gain and miser mentality ? About right ? Or am I misleading. To say covert . Mind derailing
Did I mention MISERS AND SLELF SEEKER??.. no.?
If you and the elite majority have a goal of helping yourselves control it all population elimination . And slavery as a goal.. and brainwashing is the illuminates goal to control all.. then A MIND HAS NO PURPOSE FOR REASON. And I should listen to this agsnda?? Or let others kids families KNOWING THIS IS GOING ON ?
When EF HUNTON SPEAJS EVERYONE MUST LISTEN God forbid we all DONT toss our own brains in the TOILET?☝️ and not listen to you
Yea ya know I think perception and one view and . ALL ABOUT OPINION is not one illusions based on belief . And obviously you believe YOURS IS TRUMP OVER ALL.☝️?
I get it now. Illuminati .? elite agenda across the board internet brainwashing . Satanists view. So religion out?. Yea if you pervert Gids word to . Twist out of context cut and crop modify Costomize to degrade GOD . Then.. THERES NO WAY!. I'm not opposing you to defer everyone in the web to hell just cuz ya think it's in all you FAT MISERS BEST INTREST . I really dont care whatcha think sam
Trying to be mindful all the time is my religion. How could I keep my religion out of mindfulness ? ?
I feel there must be respect for the traditions that gave us these practises and insights in the first place (buddhism in this case), but it should end there. No more subjective clinging to religion as it has proven time and time again to result in mass disaster.
Same thing applies to yoga as well.
I sure like to listen to Ben Stiller
Mindfulness can definitely be practiced without religion. But I credit everything in my life to God above. Not the God by the churches, the corrupted organized religions. But the true essence of religions and what we all have inside of us, that is what God really is.
Jp vs sh i just cant decide
Sam Harris is a zionist Jew.
That means he's delusional.
I lived in a Zen Monastery for a month in 1995. They had no real dogma. They had a rich symbology, but had no problem admitting the robes and such was just a costume. I don't see how he is discounting that. You will always have to have a context within to elicit some experiences.
But as an artist, when I am thinking and not aware of when I'm thinking; this is the playing-field of my creative thought process. It is, as John Cleese once said, an oasis for the creative mind to operate.
Harris is his own biggest fan.
Yep, religion is man attempt to find, God…God is God all by himself. He is not religion nor is he religious
Thank you.
More like the other way around. Debate me, you will lose.
Gona have to watch this a few times
"If you are declaring yourself a Buddhist, you are part of the problem of religious sectarianism that is [has?] needlessly shattered our world."
I like Sam, but that's nonsense. Teaching a technique according to the tradition it comes from, and respecting that tradition is more honest than just appropriating a bit of that tradition without crediting the tradition.
Maybe Sam should be a bit more honest himself and admit that most of the ideas he has got, on meditation, ethics, freewill, etc. owe a lot to Buddhism. Sam's critics (like jordon peterson and followers) will actually understand Sam's arguments a lot better if they worked out that he's essentially a "secular Buddhist".
Keep conventional religion out of things. But spirituality and traditional shamanism is fundamental to our cultural heritage, and has nothing to do with what conventional religion has become today. Please make a distinction!
Your solution to religious sectarianism is to discard of all religion. How did the Chinese and Russians do with that?
It doesn't "just so happen". You can't separate mindfulness from spirituality. it becomes an fruitless practice. The point of mindfulness is to understand your true Nature as "Buddha". Buddha was a spiritual teacher. So your reaction to sectarianism is to discard of all religion hahaha. Well they're problems between countries, should they all be dissolved?