Sam Harris shows my meditation is on the right spiritual track

There's many forms of meditation. They all have strengths and weaknesses, pluses and minuses. But only a few forms of meditation lead to an increased knowledge of reality, since most are based on unfounded religious dogma.

I'm confident that the meditation I've been practicing for about fifteen years -- after I wisely gave up a religiously-based form of meditation -- has me on the right spiritual track.

I explained why in "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self." Here's how that 2014 post starts out.

Just as predicted, I'm really enjoying reading Sam Harris' new book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion."

I'm about a third of the way through. Which is far enough to have discovered the central theme. Harris writes:

My goal in this chapter and the next is to convince you that the conventional sense of self is an illusion -- and that spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment.

...Most of us feel that our experience of the world refers back to a self -- not to our bodies precisely but to a center of consciousness that exists somehow interior to the body behind the eyes, inside the head.

The feeling that we call "I" seems to define our point of view in every moment, and it also provides an anchor for popular beliefs about souls and freedom of will.

And yet this feeling, however imperturbable it may appear at present, can be altered, interrupted, or entirely abolished. 

...Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents.

Wow. 

Now, I realize that some people would say "Yeah, makes sense, no big surprise" to the above scientifically- and experientially-persuasive truths.

But I spent decades as a devotee of a mystical philosophy that, like many others, taught that we humans have, or are, an eternal soul. The soul supposedly could return to God through meditation at the "eye center" -- that place behind the eyes and inside the head Harris, a neuroscientist and Buddhist practitioner, says doesn't house a self or soul.

So it sure seems like those who claim that this world is an illusion, with soul-realms being true reality, are the ones who have gotten it wrong. 

There is no enduring soul or self to be liberated. As Harris says in his book, genuine spirituality is realizing this. Thus a belief in the existence of soul leads one farther away from the truth, not closer. This is basic Buddhism, yet even many Buddhists still harbor fantasies of living on after death as... something or other.

Other posts I wrote about my first reading of Harris' "Waking Up" are here, here, and here. I re-read the book in 2016 and wrote another post about it. I had some quibbles about how Harris views consciousness, but upon a closer reading of certain sections I was able to better grasp his viewpoint.

The past few days I've been reading "Waking Up" a third time. I switch highlighter colors with every reading. By now some pages are almost completely highlighted.

This book is my favorite in the spiritual but not religious genre. Harris is famously down on religion, yet decidedly up on understanding the nature of ourselves through Buddhist Vipassana (mindfulness) meditation that's aimed at dissolving the illusion that we are, or have, a self/soul.

Harris writes:

Unlike the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the teachings of Buddhism are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation. They are, rather, empirical instructions: If you do X, you will experience Y.

Although many Buddhists have a superstitious and cultic attachment to the historical Buddha, the teachings of Buddhism present him as an ordinary  human being who succeeded in understanding the nature of his own mind.

Buddha means "swakened one" -- and Siddhartha Gautama was merely a man who woke up from the dream of being a separate self. 

Compare this with the Christian view of Jesus, who is imagined to be the son of the creator of the universe. This is a very different proposition, and it renders Christianity, no matter how fully divested of metaphysical baggage, all but irrelevant to a scientific discussion about the human condition.

...Although the experience of self-transcendence is, in principle, available to everyone, this possibility is only weakly attested to in the religious and philosophical literature of the West.

Only Buddhists and students of Advaita Vedanta (which appears to have been heavily influenced by Buddhism) have been absolutely clear in asserting that spiritual life consists in overcoming the illusion of the self by paying close attention to our experience in the present moment.

Beautiful. 

What I love about this approach to spirituality is that it's solidly founded in modern neuroscience, which also says that our sense of being a "self" is almost certainly an illusion, so meditation needs to be aimed at realizing what we are not by paying close attention to what we actually are.

Namely, thoughts without a thinker; perceptions without a perceiver; emotions without an emoter; and so on.

Sam Harris writes:

The claim that we can experience consciousness without a conventional sense of self -- that there is no rider on the horse -- seems to be on firm ground neurologically. Whatever causes the brain to produce the false notion that there is a thinker living somewhere inside the head, it makes sense that it could stop doing this. And once it does, our inner lives become more faithful to the facts.

How can we know that the conventional sense of self is an illusion? When we look closely, it vanishes. This is compelling in the same way that the disappearance of any illusion is: You thought something was there, but upon closer inspection, you see that it isn't. What doesn't survive scrutiny cannot be real.

Harris uses this visual illusion as an analogy.

There appears to be a white box in the center of the figure. But, Harris says, "when we study the image, it becomes clear that there are only four partial circles. The square has been imposed by our visual system, whose edge detectors have been fooled."

Try blanking out all but one of the black figures with your hand. That makes it easier to see that what appears to be a white square actually is an absence, not a presence. 

Just like the self, or soul. It appears to be there, but this is an illusion. Look for it, and it's nowhere to be found. If that feeling of nowhere'ness persists, congratulations. You're enlightened! Or, awake.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian
You wrote
"There is no enduring soul or self to be liberated. As Harris says in his book, genuine spirituality is realizing this. Thus a belief in the existence of soul leads one farther away from the truth, not closer. This is basic Buddhism.."

The idea that there is no self, Anatta, is fundamental to Buddhism.
But also fundamental to Buddhism the endless cycle of Samsara, where something does continue into rebirth and experiences that painful cycle. If we really do return, we don't remember, so does it really matter?

But nirvana is the liberation from that rebirth, liberation from the cycle of samsara, in Buddhism.

Buddha, as the story goes, realized that the spiritual leaders of his time advocated practices that would simply result in a better birth, not true liberation from that (nirvana).

In Western Secular Buddhism all those Buddhist teachings about liberation from rebirth is considered part of a theory that isn't actually in the here-and-now present experience of most people. So it is viewed as irrelevant and a mental distraction from our actual experience.

Our consciousness is reborn all the time. And in the case of Alzheimers', can be destroyed altogether. Our experience is largely constructed by our brain, and suffers the instability and unreliability of this magnificent bag of goo we call the brain.

In Sant Mat all considerations of such things as soul in theory are also largely considered to be mental conceptions. Meditation serves the purpose of taking us beyond mind so that we can also find liberation from birth and death.

If you consider that our consciousness is really a mental construction, then it is easy to understand that soul is not mind or consciousness. But soul as we describe it is a mental notion, therefore it isn't real.

But what is it, then, if "we" are destroyed at death yet return again in a different form?

Hence the concept of soul.

But if they're is something beyond thought, how can we experience that more permanent reality, or whatever it is that continues through Samsara, the circle of transmigration, our potential permanence?

The secret, if you can call it that, lies in changing your point of view. Raising your vantage point. And that can be done with a number of different kinds of meditation.

Meditation is in part changing our perspective. This is done by what we choose to look at.

We choose to watch our thoughts. Or we choose to focus on a specific thought, etc. In these processes there are, initially at least, a few similar dynamics.

But in the main, we simply become more aware of either our inner or outer experience. Meditation changes your consciousness simply by being able to see at least some of your own thoughts from an independent perspective.

In some ways all our experience is inner. Whatever we perceive is happening inside this brain.

With a little focus we don't see the table, we see four partial circles. But in time we may see four openings, and then realize the whole page is actually empty regardless of color, and it's nothing but a portal covered in sensory qualities. And in time we enter that portal and witness something completely different that is more stable and reliable than page, or our own thoughts and sensory perceptions.

That's how focus works. Constant focus takes you deeper into what you are focusing on, until it takes you somewhere else.

At some point the photo is just dots on a page. And the whole page is a flat mental construction.

You may not have a soul. "You" might not actually exist as a separate entity. But if you can experience that liberation, it's nirvana. And that is absolutely permanent.

[Dungeness]

Our consciousness is reborn all the time. And in the case of Alzheimers', can be destroyed altogether.

Spence, did you perhaps mean much of the awareness associated
with consciousness is increasingly impaired rather than entirely gone?

From a lay perspective I thought I understood Alzheimers to be just
diminishing memory awareness but in some cases not extending to
distant memories, for instance, and with many cognitive faculties
still intact, able to enjoy music, recognize cherished objects, respond to
affectionate words, etc.

[Dharam]

You do not have a soul,because you have to work hard to search the soul which has lost her identity.So,it is easy to say that there is no soul.No soul,no meditation,no sitting,no hard work.Enjoy this life.There is nothing after life.No problem to go other species after this life.That is a theory.This world is real.So enjoy .

[Mike England]

Dear Brian
Sweet Larry
This is you at your best. I really like this blog. Will catch up on the links later.
I’m looking for some form of meditation that is outside of the simran based RSSB. This looks like it hits the spot.
I’ve ordered the book.
Thank you 🙏
Peace Goodwill and Strong Meditation to all at the Church of the Churchless

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Dungeness
There are moments within a single second where you and I are entirely unconscious.. Dozens. As the brain deteriorates, there are more of them.

We live our lives largely unconscious, and large blocks of life in a state of hypnosis. Try binge watching TV and then reflecting afterwards, "where did those hours go?!" It's not good for the brain.

So consciousness only appears continuous to us, because it's all we remember. The brain works hard to reconstruct it all the time.

And it's being destroyed all the time as well.

Health influences that.. The moments we are actually conscious.

And meditation is a practice to help us see those moments we lost consciousness... And to try to stay awake, aware, 'mindful' continuously for more than a few seconds.

When that happens our consciousness naturally begins to withdraw to what Maharaji called the eye center. We just experience it as being here now, centered and awake.

And that place itself is peace, and readiness. Itself it is a form of withdrawal. Focus is itself a form of withdrawal to our center.

And any decent meditation serves the function of helping that to happen. More concentrated, more focused, we are more aware, more awake, more conscious.

If we can learn to experience that without pushing, letting it follow its own path, remarkable things happen. Withdrawal is actually natural. Our brain also works hard to prevent that, to keep us moving from object to object. But our brain also has the natural pathway back to the center, which we can control through meditation: The protocol and programming to close down varies tasks as we stay calmly focused. The result is we have greater awareness. What Dr. Benson labeled the Relaxation Response.

We use some form of disciplined practice to let that happen, to stay in that mode where the brain /sensory mechanisms turn off one by one and we become more aware as a result. Like shutting down tasks on a computer, leaving more processing power for a larger single task. And that task is already a program to take us beyond the stars. But it only runs under very stable conditions. And we only get to the higher levels of that game working through the lower ones.

It may well turn out those regions are part of the brain. They must be.

But it is a part science is only beginning to understand. Perhaps the most magnificent part.

[Dungeness]

We live our lives largely unconscious, and large blocks of life in a state of hypnosis. Try binge watching TV and then reflecting afterwards, "where did those hours go?!" It's not good for the brain.

Hi Spence,

You're right and I'm swearing off all the talk shows right now :)

Amazing how we say "where did the time go" when enjoying
conversation with a friend too. Only no guilt afterwards.

[rudyard hk]

Sam Harris a Buddhist or atheist?
Which?

[Brian Hines]

Buddhists are atheists, since Buddhism doesn’t believe in a god. So Sam Harris embraces both atheism and Buddhism.

[Mike]

To say Buddhism is atheistic is incorrect.

To say Buddhism is not atheistic is also incorrect

If you understand this perhaps you have realized the root ( Samkhya ) and are in accord with the valley spirit which nourishes all life.