Below are my speaking notes for my presentation at the Lakeside Freethinkers on November 19, 2014.
My book report on Waking Up - A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris is available on the Ajijic Book Club website.
I prepared a lengthy summary of Waking Up which included comments by my friend Jim Kotow and my Lakeside Freethinkers colleague Ron Barry.
- Samuel B. "Sam" Harris (born April 9, 1967)
- experimented with the drug ecstasy achieved extraordinary states of consciousness
- he went to India,where he studied meditationwith Hinduand Buddhistreligious teachers achieved extraordinary states of consciousness
- Stanford, completing a B.A.degree in philosophy in 2000
- a Ph.D.degree in cognitive neurosciencein 2009 at UCLA
- author, activist, advocate 4 books, website
- Four Horsemen, new atheists Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens
- 2007 Sam and Annaka Harris founded Project Reason,a charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society
- a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America
Harris is uniquely qualified...
What is Spirituality?
There is no single, widely agreed definition of spirituality.
Spirituality is a practice which brings the mind fully to the present and which may induce nonordinary states of consciousness. Spirituality is a deeply transformative experience of selftranscendence gained through an experiential understanding that the feeling of self is an illusion, and that this can be achieved through mindfulness meditation.
The purpose of spirituality is to reduce individual human suffering and enhance wellbeing.
Why this word? Because it is the best word available to convey the concepts...
Why?
- Spiritual experiences explainable without the supernatural
- Spirituality facilities well being, reduces suffering
- To understand the nature of mind
- To fill a void in the secular world
- truth = corresponds with reality firm ground neurologically
Key Concepts
Chapter 1: Spirituality
THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS
“Is there a form of happiness beyond the mere repetition of pleasure and avoidance of pain?...most of us are living as though the answer were ‘no.’”
RELIGION, EAST AND WEST
“The teachings of Buddhism, and of Eastern spirituality generally , focus on the primacy of the mind... the teachings of Buddhism emphasize a connection between ethical and spiritual life...There is now little question that how one uses one’s attention, moment to moment, largely determines what kind of person one becomes.”
MINDFULNESS
“One of the great strengths of this technique of meditation, from a secular point of view, is that it does not require us to adopt any cultural affectations or unjustified beliefs.It simply demands that we pay close attention to the flow of experience in each moment.”
THE TRUTH OF SUFFERING
“ ...the unsatisfactoriness of the good life runs deep... even for extraordinarily lucky people, life is difficult.”
Chapter 2: The Mystery of Consciousness
“Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing. But I don’t know what that sentence actually means— and I don’t think anyone else does either. This situation has been characterized as an “explanatory gap” and as the “hard problem of consciousness...perhaps the emergence of consciousness is simply incomprehensible in human terms. Every chain of explanation must end somewhere— generally with a brute fact that neglects to explain itself.”
THE MIND DIVIDED
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
ARE OUR MINDS ALREADY SPLIT?
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING IN THE BRAIN
● “What is most startling about the splitbrain phenomenon is that we have every reason to believe that the isolated right hemisphere is independently conscious...In fact, the divided hemispheres sometimes seem to address each other directly... each hemisphere might well have its own beliefs.”
● “ ...it seems certain that even a normal human brain will be functionally split to one or another degree... how can our brains not harbor multiple centers of consciousness even now?”
● “Many other findings attest to the importance of our unconscious mental lives.”
CONSCIOUSNESS IS WHAT MATTERS
● “Despite the obvious importance of the unconscious mind,consciousness is what matters to us— not just for the purpose of spiritual practice but in every aspect of our lives.”
Chapter 3: The Riddle of the Self
● “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... Like many illusions, the sense of self disappears when closely examined, and this is done through the practice of meditation.”
WHAT ARE WE CALLING “I”?
● "you almost certainly feel like an internal self in almost every waking moment. And yet, howeverone looks for it, this self is nowhere to be found... its absence can be found - and when it is, the feeling of being a self disappears.”
LOST IN THOUGHT
● “ ...our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as appearances in consciousness— is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one’s head.”
THE CHALLENGE OF STUDYING THE SELF Theory of Mind
● “It may be that an awareness of other minds is a necessary condition for an awareness of one’s own..."
PENETRATING THE ILLUSION
● “The claim that we can experience consciousness without a conventional sense of self... seems to be on firm ground neurologically."
Why should we live in relationship to ourselves rather than merely as ourselves? Why should an “I” and a “me” be keeping each other company?”
...the brain to produce the false notionthat 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.”
Chapter 4: Meditation
● “ ...psychological literature suggests that mindfulness in particular fosters many components of physical and mental health...”
GRADUAL VERSUS SUDDEN REALIZATION DZOGCHEN: TAKING THE GOAL AS THE PATH HAVING NO HEAD
THE PARADOX OF ACCEPTANCE
● ...the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self...
● It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering— fear, anger, shame— in an instant. At my level of practice, this freedom lasts only a few moments.”
● Embracing the contents of consciousness in any moment is a very powerful way of training yourself to respond differently to adversity. However, it is important to distinguish between accepting unpleasant sensations and emotions as a strategy— while covertly hoping that they will go away— and truly accepting them as transitory appearances in consciousness. Only the latter gesture opens the door to wisdom and lasting change.
Chapter 5: Gurus, Death, Drugs, and Other Puzzles
● “ ... there is no way around the fact that in spiritual matters, as in all others, we must seek instructionfrom those whom we deem to be more accomplished than ourselves,
MIND ON THE BRINK OF DEATH
THE SPIRITUAL USES OF PHARMACOLOGY
Conclusion
● “What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose on earth?... Spirituality remains the great hole in secularism, humanism, rationalism, atheism...
● “Until we can talk about spirituality in rational terms— acknowledging the validity of selftranscendence— our world will remain shattered by dogmatism. This book has been my attempt to begin such a conversation.”
● "Consciousness is simply the light by which the contours of mind and body are known... Making this discovery, again and again, is the basis of spiritual life.”
What I like...
1. ➽ secular spirituality, science and philosophy
2. ➽ the teachings of Buddhism
3. ➽ subjective experience
4. ➽ introspection
5. ➽ mindfulness meditation
6. ➽ discussing the mystery of consciousness, mind, self
What I do not like...
1. ➽ the path, a path
What I am skeptical of...
1. ➽ the importance of deeply transformative experience of self-transcendence
2. ➽ the importance of experiential understanding that the self is an illusion