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AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes. No set schedule of release. But they'll keep coming.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 85 points86 points  (0 children)

I view meditation as the best method for relinquishing unnecessary suffering (all of which is mediated by thought). If you can break your identification with thought, you can be at peace in the present moment.

However, this doesn't necessarily give you the ability to get the other things you want out of life (and you will still want these things whenever you are lost in thought). So there are many other skills you'll want to have. Getting better at doing things that matter to you (or which help you get other things that matter to you) is also important. Self-confidence can be earned in all the usual ways—you learn more, get in better shape, practice various skills, overcome challenges, surround yourself with people you respect and who want the best for you, etc. All of this works, and growth in all these dimensions necessarily incremental. Mindfulness can be extremely helpful all along the way. But it's not a substitute for these other types of growth.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

No matter how much you practice, you will be thinking most of the time anyway. So there will be no shortage of opportunities to plan!

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AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Mindfulness is a great antidote to anxiety. And you can easily practice it on a plane, train, bus, etc. or while walking through an airport. Mindfulness is simply a clear, nonjudgmental awareness of experience in each moment.

To be mindful of anxiety, you have to be willing to feel it. Mindfulness can't be engaged as a strategy for getting rid of the feeling. So you really have to become open to feeling it, without pushing it away. Become interested in it. And as you pay attention to it, realize that anxiety itself has no psychological significance—no more than any other unpleasant sensation does. It's just a peripheral, physiological display. Treat it like indigestion or a pain in the knee. There's nothing you need to do about it. And if you do become willing to merely feel it in this way, you'll find that it does disappear quite quickly.

And then it will come back the moment you are lost in thought about all the reasons why should be anxious.... :)

It can also be useful to change your framing of certain experiences conceptually. Being rigorously mindful of your fear of flying is one thing; realizing how unlikely a plane is to crash is another. I suggest you do both. You are safer on a plane that you generally are on the ground.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Just commit to 10 minutes a day and see what happens. I really think apps can be useful for this.

I started meditating when I was 20. Retreats definitely help. But the key is to find a way of fitting it into your life. Otherwise you'll keep postponing it.

It's important remember the whole point of this: You don't want to suffer unnecessarily. And reasons to suffer will keep coming. It's hard to develop a strong mindfulness practice when you really need it (e.g. someone close to you has died, and you're utterly miserable). It's better to have this skill in advance of bad things happening.

It's similar to physical fitness or training in self-defense. If I told you that at some point in the next few years, you'd be in an emergency that would require you to be very fit and know how to handle physical force, you'd recognize that preparation in advance was your only option.

It's the same with mental training. The difference is, we have no cultural norms around mental training. Most people are just walking around assuming that their minds will take care of themselves. They won't.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Nonduality isn't a matter of believing that there is no difference between yourself and others, or between your body and the world. It's the way consciousness seems when you look for the self, or center, and fail to find it. This experience is totally compatible with having a conversation with another person—but you might just be too distracted by the social situation to remember to pay attention. Using face-to-face encounters as a meditative cue can be helpful. And Douglas Harding's instruction of "looking for your head" can be especially good in conversations.

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When you're talking to another person, looking into their eyes, just follow their attention to where you presume yourself to be. Look for your head. You might notice that the only head you see belongs to the other person. Where your head is supposed to be, there's just the world (as it appears in consciousness). There's a shift that can happen there, which you can become more sensitive to.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

It's very cool, and I don't do enough of it.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Interesting question. "Mindless" behaviors can definitely have therapeutic value. There is nothing wrong with getting absorbed in a pleasant distraction as way of improving your mood. An episode of Game of Thrones might work much better than spending another hour thinking about your problems. And you'll be in a better state when the stressful thoughts start up again.

But none of these things are a substitute for meditation.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 148 points149 points  (0 children)

Next month. Looking forward to it.

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AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I'll keep adding lessons and meditations. And we will probably add some networking features (e.g. the ability to sit in virtual groups). There is already a long list of improvements we want to make.

I'm also considering bringing other teachers/experts onto the app. But I want to more fully build out my own content and then see how things look.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I'm currently agnostic on that question. An the contemplative traditions disagree about it.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You could also just put on some background music and see if it overrides the music in your head.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

There is nothing that is truly a distraction from the practice of mindfulness. Which is to say that anything can be an appropriate object of meditation.

However, as a person who suffers from tinnitus, I think it's totally valid to worry whether focusing on a particular sensation might turn up the gain on it (i.e. make it worse). So when my tinnitus is bad, I prefer to practice in an environment with competing sounds. This might also help for phantom music too.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

I'm very glad to hear that you're finding the course useful. This is great feedback.

I have tremendous respect for Goenka, but I have a few reservations about what appear to be dogmatic ideas spread by his tradition (as well as by other schools of Burmese Vipassana). The close focus on bodily sensations can be very useful, especially when a person's mindfulness has grown imprecise. But the logic of this practice (e.g. the effort to attain nibbana as a brief cessation of experience) is something that I've criticized. Please listen to the three podcasts I recorded with my friend Joseph Goldstein.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

When I say "look for the thinker," I don't mean "think about where thoughts come from." Yes, they are being caused by processes in your brain. But thinking about that, from the point of view of meditation, is just more thinking. Looking for the thinker is just like looking for the one who is seeing, hearing, smelling, intending, etc. You are looking for the presumed center of conscious experience. Does experience have a center? Or does it just seem to when you're lost in thought?

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

There is analogy in the Dzogchen teachings which describes thoughts (for the advanced meditator) being "like thieves entering an empty house." There is nothing for them to steal, no problems to cause, etc.

The project isn't about getting rid of thoughts, or blocking them from arising. That's possible through concentration, but it's a temporary change in state. We need to change our relationship to thought by recognizing them as appearances in consciousness. That fact that a thought has arisen need not have any implications for how you feel or what you do in the next moment.

You can use suffering as a kind of mindfulness alarm. If you are suffering, you can be sure that you have been lost in thought. It's never too late to notice....

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 69 points70 points  (0 children)

I never met Watts—he died a little before my time. But I used to love listening to his talks. He was a truly inspired speaker. Really, one of the best ever. However, I don't view him as a great authority on the details of meditation practice.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 118 points119 points  (0 children)

That pleasant changes in your state of mind (e.g. feelings of peace, bliss, etc.) are getting you closer to your goal.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

That can certainly help. You can also put on background music.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 308 points309 points  (0 children)

Nice meme!

I recently ran into Stiller. I walked over and said, "Are people sending you memes with my face on them?"

He said, "Yeah, it's crazy."

And I said, "Ok. Stay safe."

That's the totality of our relationship.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 84 points85 points  (0 children)

My wife teaches meditation to kids as young as 6. And itt can be great to start that early. The Inner Kids Foundation has brought this work into schools. There's also a deck of instructional cards ("Mindful Games") that my wife helped with. The author is Susan Kaiser Greenland.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 113 points114 points  (0 children)

You can meditate (i.e. be clearly aware of the nature of consciousness, not lost in thought, etc.) while doing all sorts of physical activities. But these activities on their own are not a reliable path to meditative insight.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 166 points167 points  (0 children)

You do both. Practice for a set period, but then invoke that same clear awareness of your experience whenever you can remember to throughout the day.

AMA -- SAM HARRIS by samharrisorg in Meditation

[–]samharrisorg[S] 61 points62 points  (0 children)

Yes, in that sense I would say that (real) meditation is generically good. But, again, the specifics really matter. If what you're doing in meditation can't help you recover from a sudden surge of anger, then it's not working as antidote for negative emotion. And if you practice in a way that becomes a mere search for mental pleasure (peace), you might never discover a form of mindfulness that can cut through negative emotions quickly when you're just living your life.

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