“The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of wellbeing that is inherent to the nature of our minds.” — Sam Harris
Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D in neuroscience from UCLA. Sam is the host of the Waking Up podcast, and he is the author of multiple books including The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz).
This experimental episode came about because a few months back Sam asked me to be a beta tester for his Waking Up meditation app that he was creating at the time. It was recently released, and I highly recommend it. I anticipated it would be good because Sam’s work is always good, and he’s one of those rare humans who seems to think and speak in finished prose, and he has a voice that can very easily lull you into a semi-psychedelic state while you are completely sober. You’ll hear what I mean soon.
Sam has a unique combination of experiences and areas of expertise, and his approach is that of a logical progression of layering on different types of training for learning the skill of meditation. In this episode, Sam will discuss his experiences with MDMA, his spiritual exploration, contact with so-called gurus, duality versus non-duality, and lots more. If you want to dive right into a beginner level guided meditation, skip to [52:32].
Make sure to check out the bonus episode (also found on this page) if you enjoy what you find here and want to jump straight to the guided meditations. The bonus episode also features additional content from Sam not found in the longer episode.
Enjoy!
You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find the transcript of this episode here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
Here is the companion episode if you want to jump directly to the guided meditations from Sam:
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Connect with Sam Harris:
Website | Waking Up (app) | Waking Up (podcast) | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
- Sam Harris, PhD on Spirituality, Neuroscience, Meditation, and More, The Tim Ferriss Show Episode 14
- Sam Harris on Daily Routines, The Trolley Scenario, and 5 Books Everyone Should Read, The Tim Ferriss Show Episode 87
- Books by Sam Harris
- Oak for Meditation and Breathing
- Calm: The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep
- Headspace: Meditation and Mindfulness Made Simple
- 10% Happier
- Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris
- Drugs and the Meaning of Life, Waking Up Episode 1
- Battle of Shiloh Facts & Summary, American Battlefield Trust
- A New View of the Battle of Gallipoli, One of the Bloodiest Conflicts of World War I by Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian
- MDMA: Effects, Hazards & Extent of Use by L. Anderson, PharmD, Drugs.com
- The Bible
- The Quran
- The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know by David Chiu, Rolling Stone
- Vipassana Meditation
- Dzogchen
- Advaita Vedanta, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Theravada Buddhism, BBC
- The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga by Acaeiya Buddhaghosa
- Nirvana (or Nibbana)
- Rigpa
- Who Are the Tibetan Lamas?, Slate
- The figure from Waking Up for finding your blind spot.
- Elon Musk Reveals Plan to Put 1 Million People on Mars by Laurie Vazquez, Big Think
- On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious by Douglas Harding
- “The unexamined life is not worth living.” -Socrates
SHOW NOTES
- What you can expect from this episode (and why you probably shouldn’t listen to it while you’re driving a car). [07:21]
- The Waking Up course app differs from other meditation apps. [08:39]
- Sam’s background, and the journey his first foray into psychedelics would set in motion. [09:22]
- Sam explains his views on religion and profound experiences some would call “spiritual” — which he set out to explore after that first experience with MDMA. [19:46]
- Gradual versus sudden notions of realization or awakening, enlightenment versus cessation, and the distinction between meditation and psychedelics as tools. [22:09]
- The meeting that led to a switch in Sam’s perspective on meditation after lengthy attempts for enlightenment proved unsuccessful. [31:05]
- The dangers of guru Poonjaji’s “all or nothing” approach, the main difference between Advaita and Dzogchen teachings, and what it took to unravel one fellow student’s apparently confirmed enlightenment. [37:12]
- Exploring Dzogchen and the context behind Sam’s current view of meditation. [42:32]
- Perceiving the optic blind spot: the difference between being utterly misled by false information, being nudged in the general direction, and being precisely guided by an expert. [45:42]
- One does not simply drop out of Stanford: Sam returns to college after 11 years away and finds himself uniquely qualified to unite his philosophical, scientific, and secular perspective with meditation. [50:24]
- Why Sam believes the Waking Up course app and its guided meditations will benefit beginning and veteran meditators alike. [51:38]
- Sam shares a 10-minute guided meditation from the course designed for a relative beginner to the practice of mindfulness. [52:32]
- Sam shares a lesson from the course on the topic of death. [1:03:24]
- Sam shares a lesson on the mystery of being. [1:10:33]
- A 12-minute guided meditation from a little later in the course. [1:19:54]
- Parting thoughts. [1:33:49]
BONUS EPISODE NOTES
- Day 2 guided meditation. [00:56]
- Day 17 guided meditation. [11:23]
- Day 31 guided meditation. [25:13]
- Why does Sam think you should meditate? [35:17]
PEOPLE MENTIONED
- Kevin Rose
- Peter Attia
- Dan Harris
- Joseph Goldstein
- Dionysus
- Jesus
- Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
- Lao-Tzu
- Sayadaw U Pandita
- Buddhaghosa
- Mahasi Sayadaw
- H.W.L. Poonja
- Ramana Maharshi
- Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
- Rip Van Winkle
- Socrates
- Bertrand Russell
- Winston Churchill
- Cleopatra
- Walter Benjamin
- Douglas Harding
- Eric Weinstein
- Will MacAskill
- Jocko Willink
- Plato