Making Sense - Sam Harris - January 21, 2025


398 — Thoughts Without a Thinker

Topics
mental growth and meditation meditation benefits
Hosted by
Sam Harris
Mentioned
Waking Rick Caruso I. Rather
#397 — A New Year's Message from Sam #399 — The Politics of Catastrophe

Episode Stats


Length

25 minutes

Words per minute

135.55

Word count

3,406

Sentence count

237

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about the importance of meditation, and how it can change the way we think, and the ways in which we live. I also talk about why meditation is so important in the modern world, and why we should all be meditating.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris.
00:00:25.420 Well, it has been an interesting two weeks. If you have followed me on Substack, you know that I had to flee my house, which contains my recording studio, and we have not been back, and it remains to be seen when we will go back.
00:00:45.440 The house happily was spared, but it's very close to houses that burned down, so it remains to be seen what we're going to do about that.
00:00:54.940 I will get back to the podcast soon enough. I think I have a video podcast coming up soon with Rick Caruso to talk about the LA fires and the future of California politics, perhaps.
00:01:08.400 And obviously there's so much to talk about in politics and in the world. I'm recording this just after watching the inauguration, which brought up several thoughts.
00:01:22.220 But two weeks ago, when I was at my desk seeing the first clouds of smoke emerge in the West, I was about to release a sample of lesson content from the Waking Up app, which I thought might maintain the New Year's resolution frame of mind that I imagined people would be in at this point in January.
00:01:45.860 I must say I'm pretty far from that myself, but I'm also quite in touch with how important meditation and the insights derived from it have been for me in the last two weeks.
00:02:00.940 Honestly, I don't know what my mind would be like but for the fact that I can notice the mad work that thoughts about the past and future do moment by moment and break the spell.
00:02:13.780 Wow. And that's certainly meditation by another name. So anyway, if this can be useful to you or is of interest, feel free to seek out more over at WakingUp.com.
00:02:27.260 As always, if you can't afford the app, you can get a free subscription or you can pay whatever you want. Same policy as the podcast.
00:02:37.240 And I will be back with you soon in another vein, and I look forward to it.
00:02:43.780 We have this notion that mental growth stops in adulthood. You can learn new things, of course, but your mind itself doesn't improve.
00:02:59.500 Or at least, that's what people seem to imagine.
00:03:03.340 And so we seem to view our minds as being entirely distinct from our bodies, because we understand that physical training is real.
00:03:11.280 There are people who lose 100 pounds and become competitive triathletes, right?
00:03:18.260 Now, however rare those extreme transformations are, we know that they're possible.
00:03:25.260 And the rest of us pursue our own efforts at physical self-improvement on that same landscape of possibility.
00:03:33.000 We can see the landmarks.
00:03:36.160 In fact, they're continually advertised to us.
00:03:39.300 Every month, we see a new celebrity who got in great shape for a film, for instance.
00:03:44.240 So there are no secrets here.
00:03:46.820 And if we don't decide to get in the best shape of our lives, starting right now,
00:03:51.920 it's not because we didn't know that it was possible.
00:03:54.720 But most of us are genuinely unaware that it is possible to change our minds.
00:04:03.400 The concept of mental training is barely entertained.
00:04:07.220 And yet there really are things we can do that lead to cognitive and emotional and even ethical changes that are wholly good for us.
00:04:16.040 So it seems to me what we need is a new norm of human growth, where it's understood that growth is possible and even necessary continuously throughout life,
00:04:29.160 intellectually, in our relationships, in the way we prioritize the use of our attention.
00:04:35.060 At what age do we learn how to have better conversations?
00:04:41.260 At what age do we learn to have better conversations with ourselves?
00:04:46.100 And at what age do we learn that any conversation with oneself, the very structure of our thinking,
00:04:52.860 is in fact based on an illusion that creates so much suffering for us?
00:04:58.960 Now, of course, there are many components to living an examined life.
00:05:02.380 And there's no single way of thinking or use of attention that accomplishes everything we want.
00:05:10.200 But meditation, real meditation, is an essential piece here.
00:05:17.200 And the fact that none of us are told this in school or by our doctors indicates nothing more than a cultural blind spot.
00:05:26.760 It used to be that physical exercise was something that only a very strange person
00:05:31.180 would pursue deliberately.
00:05:33.940 And smoking was considered a healthy habit.
00:05:36.560 There were actually television ads in the 40s and 50s showing doctors smoking in their offices.
00:05:43.000 And the ads claim that in a national survey of doctors,
00:05:46.700 more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.
00:05:50.080 It's possible for an entire society to be totally confused
00:05:55.140 about something rather important.
00:05:57.940 Now, anyone who has real experience with meditation knows that there's something to be discovered there
00:06:05.580 that they were missing.
00:06:07.580 And it's something that most people are still missing.
00:06:11.020 And the fact that most people don't know they're missing it doesn't make it any less of a problem
00:06:15.540 for them or for the rest of society.
00:06:18.080 Once you know how to meditate, you see that more or less all of the world's chaos,
00:06:24.620 apart from natural disasters, is born of our lack of insight into our mental lives.
00:06:30.800 All the conflict between people and all the pointless suffering it causes,
00:06:36.060 all the disorder in people's lives born of their own misbehavior,
00:06:40.520 these are symptoms of people's minds being totally out of control.
00:06:45.180 The next time something happens in your life that makes you angry or afraid or sad,
00:06:53.940 how long will you spend locked in the prison of one of those emotions?
00:07:00.120 And what will you do there?
00:07:02.580 What indelible mark might you make in your life or in our world on the basis of one of those emotions?
00:07:09.500 One benefit that people get from learning to meditate
00:07:13.620 is the ability to simply let go of negative emotions.
00:07:17.060 You can decide how long you want to stay angry for.
00:07:21.580 That's a superpower when you look at what's happening in the world. 0.99
00:07:26.380 You can get off the ride before you say or do something stupid that you'll later regret. 0.98
00:07:33.260 Now negative emotions aside, 0.99
00:07:34.520 Have you noticed how fragmented your attention has become?
00:07:40.180 Have you noticed how hard it is to sit down and read a book for an hour?
00:07:44.940 When was the last time you read a book for an hour without checking your email or social media?
00:07:51.820 There is a multi-front war being fought for our attention.
00:07:56.000 And most of us are losing it.
00:07:57.760 Have you seen the people staggering around with their smartphones,
00:08:01.940 even crossing the street while texting,
00:08:04.960 literally stepping in front of traffic without looking up?
00:08:08.520 Have you seen parents around their kids visibly tethered to this digital leash?
00:08:14.660 Are you one of these parents?
00:08:16.500 There was a recent photo exhibit that was rather brilliant
00:08:19.580 where a photographer captured people using their smartphones
00:08:23.160 but then removed the phones from their hands.
00:08:26.420 So you see these images of people in various situations in life
00:08:30.580 while staring vacantly into their open palms.
00:08:35.300 It's worth thinking about this psychological experiment we're performing on ourselves.
00:08:41.520 You will not learn to meditate by accident.
00:08:44.900 And you won't learn it by jogging or hiking or playing music
00:08:49.380 or doing any of the other things you do to feel good.
00:08:52.780 Paradoxically, once you know how to meditate,
00:08:56.380 you can experience the same insights into the nature of your mind
00:08:59.000 while jogging and hiking and playing music
00:09:01.880 and doing all the other things you like to do.
00:09:05.100 But you are very unlikely to have these insights
00:09:07.880 and experience the associated change in your perception of yourself and the world
00:09:13.900 without explicitly learning the practice of meditation.
00:09:18.240 When you sit down to meditate,
00:09:23.280 you will find yourself assailed by thoughts.
00:09:27.560 Thoughts about what you need to do later in the day.
00:09:30.480 Thoughts about things that worry you.
00:09:33.640 Thoughts about things you want or don't want.
00:09:36.880 The moment you attempt to pay attention to your breath
00:09:40.900 or to the sound of the wind in the trees,
00:09:44.540 you will meet your mind.
00:09:47.840 And your mind is the most rambling, chaotic, 0.99
00:09:53.120 needling, insulting, insufferable person you will ever meet. 1.00
00:09:59.780 It's like having some maniac walk through the front door of your house 0.98
00:10:03.740 and follow you from room to room and refuse to stop talking.
00:10:09.540 And this happens every day of your life.
00:10:13.660 It is possible to get him to stop talking for brief periods of time.
00:10:18.640 And that can come with greater concentration in meditation.
00:10:21.880 It's possible to pay attention to the breath, for instance,
00:10:27.000 and to be so focused on it that thoughts no longer arise.
00:10:32.200 And this can be an extremely pleasant experience when it happens,
00:10:36.560 but it's a temporary experience.
00:10:40.020 Real relief comes when we recognize thoughts for what they are.
00:10:46.020 Mere appearances in consciousness.
00:10:48.380 Mindfulness, images, bits of language.
00:10:52.860 The fact that a thought has arisen
00:10:54.840 does not give it a necessary claim upon your life.
00:10:59.600 It need not have any implications, psychological or otherwise.
00:11:04.980 Of course, you'll continue to think
00:11:06.840 and to be moved to act by thoughts.
00:11:10.380 But meditation gives you a choice.
00:11:13.120 Do you really want to follow this next thought
00:11:15.460 wherever it leads?
00:11:16.900 Almost everything you experience
00:11:20.740 is the product of thought.
00:11:23.420 Just look around you at the evidence of civilization.
00:11:27.600 Look at how the natural world has been pruned and modified.
00:11:32.920 Thought is almost everything.
00:11:35.900 It's science,
00:11:37.440 art,
00:11:38.540 religion,
00:11:39.820 philosophy,
00:11:41.180 technology,
00:11:41.780 every social pathology,
00:11:45.160 racism,
00:11:46.460 tribal hatred,
00:11:48.080 corporate greed.
00:11:49.620 All of human activity,
00:11:51.420 from the most constructive,
00:11:53.360 like finding a cure for a disease like smallpox,
00:11:56.240 to the most destructive,
00:11:58.420 like weaponizing a disease like smallpox,
00:12:01.620 is the product
00:12:03.100 of what human beings like ourselves
00:12:06.060 think.
00:12:07.080 Look around you at all the objects
00:12:10.020 and materials
00:12:11.240 that you use on a daily basis
00:12:13.200 and upon which
00:12:14.520 you now depend
00:12:15.600 for your survival.
00:12:17.640 If civilization were to end tomorrow,
00:12:20.260 could you produce
00:12:21.260 any of these things?
00:12:23.420 If you were alone in the world,
00:12:25.700 in the state of nature,
00:12:27.020 how long would it take
00:12:28.760 for you to produce
00:12:30.300 a single needle
00:12:31.920 and thread?
00:12:33.000 Would a lifetime
00:12:34.980 be enough?
00:12:36.940 Now imagine what it would take
00:12:38.080 to produce
00:12:38.660 a smartphone.
00:12:40.220 What is the minimum number
00:12:41.540 of people
00:12:42.060 required
00:12:42.800 to move from
00:12:44.320 taking the raw materials
00:12:45.720 out of the earth
00:12:46.820 and refining them
00:12:48.580 into glass
00:12:49.320 and plastic
00:12:50.000 and electronic components
00:12:51.680 and then developing
00:12:53.120 the principles of computation
00:12:54.400 and memory storage
00:12:55.480 necessary to build
00:12:56.920 a smartphone?
00:12:58.620 Almost everything
00:12:59.700 around us
00:13:00.660 is pregnant
00:13:01.940 with human knowledge.
00:13:04.440 Human knowledge
00:13:05.000 is literally built
00:13:06.460 into the walls
00:13:07.520 of your house
00:13:08.240 and into your clothing.
00:13:11.060 No single person
00:13:11.820 knows how to produce
00:13:13.040 most of what we depend on.
00:13:15.500 This knowledge
00:13:16.100 is distributed.
00:13:18.000 We are all living
00:13:18.860 in an ever-expanding
00:13:20.320 and deepening
00:13:21.340 system
00:13:22.200 of ideas.
00:13:24.420 This is the power
00:13:25.560 of thought.
00:13:27.480 But within our own minds,
00:13:29.260 we tend to live
00:13:30.300 under a kind of tyranny.
00:13:31.940 of thinking.
00:13:33.060 And we have a false sense
00:13:34.520 that there's a thinker
00:13:35.740 in addition
00:13:36.900 to thoughts themselves.
00:13:39.100 You may feel
00:13:39.960 that you are the thinker
00:13:41.000 using thoughts
00:13:42.460 or authoring them.
00:13:44.400 But the self
00:13:45.100 is a construct
00:13:46.000 of thought.
00:13:47.360 The feeling of self
00:13:48.420 is what it feels like
00:13:50.060 to be thinking
00:13:51.600 in each moment
00:13:53.080 without recognizing
00:13:54.660 the arising
00:13:55.840 of the next thought.
00:13:56.680 and one would be
00:13:58.260 very hard-pressed
00:13:59.040 to think of a source
00:14:00.100 of suffering
00:14:00.800 that isn't the direct
00:14:02.920 product
00:14:03.340 of this process.
00:14:05.400 Certainly,
00:14:05.800 everything coming
00:14:06.560 from our relationships
00:14:07.740 and careers
00:14:08.960 and concerns
00:14:10.240 about the past
00:14:10.960 and future
00:14:11.480 is mediated
00:14:13.020 by thought.
00:14:14.760 Even our response
00:14:15.580 to pain,
00:14:16.720 direct,
00:14:17.920 physical pain,
00:14:18.880 is largely
00:14:20.400 the product
00:14:20.960 of how we think about it.
00:14:22.060 Pain is one thing.
00:14:25.020 Suffering is another.
00:14:27.360 The resistance we feel,
00:14:29.360 the anxiety,
00:14:30.820 the fear
00:14:31.380 of how things will hurt
00:14:32.480 in the next moment,
00:14:33.900 this too
00:14:34.500 is the product of thought.
00:14:36.520 Of course,
00:14:37.040 getting rid of thought
00:14:38.000 is not an option.
00:14:40.060 The only way
00:14:40.820 to plan for the future,
00:14:42.520 the only way
00:14:43.020 to act intelligently
00:14:44.400 in response
00:14:45.500 to present challenges,
00:14:47.300 is,
00:14:47.820 in the general case,
00:14:49.080 to think things through.
00:14:50.360 But use
00:14:52.200 suffering itself
00:14:53.780 as a kind
00:14:54.900 of alarm clock.
00:14:56.660 And this is where
00:14:57.400 meditation
00:14:57.880 can be useful.
00:15:00.000 Meditation gives you
00:15:00.920 an ability
00:15:01.380 to respond
00:15:02.240 to the alarm.
00:15:04.140 If you are suffering,
00:15:05.900 you are lost
00:15:06.720 in thought.
00:15:07.980 And until you learn
00:15:08.880 a practice like mindfulness,
00:15:10.860 there is no alternative.
00:15:12.840 You live
00:15:13.520 at the whim
00:15:14.180 of the next sentence
00:15:16.060 or image
00:15:16.920 that appears
00:15:17.880 in your mind.
00:15:19.520 Once you
00:15:20.220 understand how
00:15:20.760 to meditate,
00:15:21.560 however,
00:15:22.560 once you can
00:15:23.080 pay attention
00:15:23.740 to this automaticity,
00:15:26.000 then you have
00:15:26.780 a choice.
00:15:27.900 So when you're
00:15:28.720 suffering,
00:15:29.720 just notice
00:15:30.620 the present thought.
00:15:33.180 Where is it?
00:15:34.760 What is it?
00:15:36.440 What happens
00:15:37.380 to it
00:15:37.740 when you pay attention?
00:15:39.640 And how is it
00:15:40.960 that your suffering
00:15:42.120 can continue
00:15:43.360 in the next moment
00:15:44.780 when the present thought
00:15:46.680 has disappeared?
00:15:49.700 There are many ways
00:15:50.880 we use the term
00:15:52.020 self,
00:15:53.040 and not all
00:15:54.980 of these selves
00:15:55.840 are illusory.
00:15:57.920 I can talk
00:15:58.420 about myself
00:15:59.040 in terms of
00:16:00.640 my personal history
00:16:01.620 or with respect
00:16:02.880 to my location
00:16:03.740 as a body
00:16:04.520 and physical space.
00:16:05.880 I can think
00:16:06.640 of myself
00:16:07.060 in various social roles
00:16:08.740 as a writer
00:16:10.180 or as a father
00:16:11.480 or as a customer
00:16:12.980 in a store.
00:16:14.580 And there's nothing
00:16:15.260 wrong with thinking
00:16:16.160 about ourselves
00:16:17.020 in these terms.
00:16:18.220 Most of this
00:16:18.920 is unavoidable.
00:16:20.660 There is,
00:16:21.120 however,
00:16:21.440 one sense of self
00:16:22.740 that is confusing
00:16:23.580 and that produces
00:16:25.020 a tremendous amount
00:16:26.000 of unnecessary suffering
00:16:27.040 for us.
00:16:28.780 And happily,
00:16:29.560 this sense of self
00:16:30.360 can be dispelled
00:16:31.320 through meditation.
00:16:33.400 It can be discovered
00:16:34.760 to be illusory
00:16:35.860 through meditation.
00:16:37.620 And this self
00:16:38.580 is the feeling
00:16:39.520 in each moment
00:16:40.820 that we are subjects
00:16:42.840 internal
00:16:43.740 to our bodies.
00:16:45.320 The feeling
00:16:46.280 of being
00:16:46.800 inside our heads.
00:16:49.160 It's almost
00:16:49.840 as though we feel
00:16:50.680 that we're passengers
00:16:51.600 in our bodies.
00:16:53.620 And it's this feeling
00:16:54.560 that is also referred
00:16:55.780 to as the ego.
00:16:57.840 If you're like
00:16:58.300 most people,
00:16:58.980 what you are calling
00:16:59.820 I
00:17:00.260 is this feeling
00:17:02.100 of being
00:17:02.700 the internal subject
00:17:03.940 of your experience.
00:17:06.480 I does not refer
00:17:07.840 merely to the body
00:17:08.960 and it certainly
00:17:10.380 doesn't refer
00:17:11.020 to the totality
00:17:12.180 of experience.
00:17:14.500 I appears
00:17:15.120 to be the center
00:17:16.020 of experience.
00:17:17.640 It's that
00:17:18.420 which is appropriating
00:17:19.540 experience.
00:17:21.840 And this feeling
00:17:22.620 that we call
00:17:23.680 I
00:17:24.020 is itself
00:17:25.480 the product
00:17:26.060 of thought.
00:17:27.600 Having an ego
00:17:28.700 is what it feels
00:17:29.900 like
00:17:30.280 to be thinking
00:17:31.700 without knowing
00:17:32.360 that you're thinking.
00:17:33.920 It's the feeling
00:17:34.920 of being identified
00:17:35.820 with thought.
00:17:38.280 Imagine that you
00:17:39.040 run into someone
00:17:39.740 you know
00:17:40.140 and like a lot
00:17:41.520 and when they see you
00:17:43.280 rather than smile
00:17:44.720 as they usually would
00:17:45.620 they look very
00:17:47.180 unhappy.
00:17:48.780 And the first words
00:17:49.900 out of their mouth
00:17:50.940 is
00:17:51.240 I can't believe
00:17:52.900 you would do that.
00:17:54.460 Now assume
00:17:55.020 you have no idea
00:17:55.780 what they're talking about.
00:17:57.260 So your first thought
00:17:58.140 is
00:17:58.440 what?
00:17:59.600 What did I do?
00:18:01.580 Now imagine
00:18:02.000 your friend looks at you
00:18:02.860 with real
00:18:03.660 mistrust
00:18:04.880 and says
00:18:06.320 seriously?
00:18:08.500 And all you can think
00:18:09.840 at that moment
00:18:10.340 is what?
00:18:10.840 What did I do?
00:18:11.960 What are you talking about?
00:18:13.700 Now these are just thoughts
00:18:14.740 and yet they
00:18:16.200 completely
00:18:16.980 subsume you.
00:18:18.580 They seem to be
00:18:19.780 what you are
00:18:20.580 in each moment
00:18:21.680 of their arising.
00:18:23.340 You have no perspective
00:18:24.600 on them.
00:18:25.540 There's no space
00:18:26.400 around them.
00:18:28.000 Your consciousness
00:18:28.680 has been almost
00:18:29.600 entirely reduced
00:18:30.960 to a string
00:18:32.240 of sentences
00:18:32.840 and to the feeling
00:18:34.560 of urgency
00:18:35.160 that created them
00:18:36.180 and which
00:18:36.900 they create
00:18:37.860 in turn.
00:18:39.680 But how could
00:18:40.620 you actually
00:18:41.620 be a thought?
00:18:43.600 How could
00:18:44.060 consciousness
00:18:44.740 be trimmed
00:18:46.160 down
00:18:46.700 to a sentence?
00:18:49.360 Whatever their content,
00:18:50.880 thoughts vanish
00:18:51.900 almost the instant
00:18:52.860 they appear.
00:18:54.640 They're like sounds
00:18:55.500 or sensations
00:18:57.120 in the body.
00:18:58.480 How could
00:18:59.260 this next thought,
00:19:00.680 however urgent,
00:19:01.340 define consciousness
00:19:03.620 at all?
00:19:05.900 Consciousness
00:19:06.360 is the prior condition
00:19:07.720 of its arising.
00:19:10.040 It's the state
00:19:10.840 of being identified
00:19:11.700 with thought,
00:19:12.800 of there being
00:19:13.300 no space,
00:19:14.380 no perspective,
00:19:15.760 where each thought
00:19:16.900 is just you.
00:19:18.740 What?
00:19:19.440 What did I do?
00:19:21.500 Thoughts are arising
00:19:22.460 in each moment
00:19:23.400 and you don't
00:19:24.820 even know
00:19:25.540 that you're thinking.
00:19:26.960 It's like dreaming
00:19:28.060 when you're asleep
00:19:28.860 and you have no idea
00:19:29.960 that you're dreaming.
00:19:31.340 That experience
00:19:32.780 of full capture
00:19:34.520 by the contents
00:19:35.740 of consciousness
00:19:36.280 is the ego.
00:19:38.780 It is the self
00:19:40.300 that is the target
00:19:42.200 of deconstruction
00:19:43.540 by the practice
00:19:44.760 of meditation.
00:19:45.980 And this self
00:19:47.180 is a burden
00:19:48.540 even when things
00:19:50.240 seem to be going well.
00:19:52.520 Consider the feeling
00:19:53.200 of pride.
00:19:54.620 Let's say you've just
00:19:55.220 done something great
00:19:55.920 and you've been praised
00:19:57.300 for it in high places.
00:19:58.720 How good
00:20:00.060 does that feel?
00:20:02.240 You know the feeling.
00:20:03.740 Some part of your mind
00:20:04.780 is just
00:20:05.300 lapping it up
00:20:06.580 with its little
00:20:07.160 cat's tongue.
00:20:08.880 But this is the same
00:20:10.140 part of you
00:20:10.660 that is always 0.98
00:20:11.340 poised to be miserable. 0.94
00:20:13.000 This is the part of you 0.99
00:20:13.980 that's always
00:20:14.500 comparing yourself
00:20:15.440 to other people.
00:20:17.280 This part of you,
00:20:18.320 even when it's
00:20:18.860 riding along
00:20:19.880 at full gallop,
00:20:21.620 can be unhorsed
00:20:22.820 with a single sentence
00:20:24.260 or even a glance.
00:20:26.440 The rewards
00:20:27.400 of the ego
00:20:28.000 are not good enough.
00:20:30.180 And again,
00:20:30.460 we're just talking
00:20:31.280 about patterns
00:20:32.220 of thoughts.
00:20:33.680 One thought
00:20:34.500 following the next.
00:20:37.060 And the selflessness
00:20:37.840 that can be realized
00:20:39.080 through meditation
00:20:39.960 is not a deep
00:20:41.140 feature of consciousness.
00:20:43.240 It's right on the surface.
00:20:45.560 And yet people
00:20:46.060 can meditate for years
00:20:47.180 without recognizing it.
00:20:49.140 How can something
00:20:49.660 be right on the surface
00:20:50.580 and yet be difficult
00:20:51.380 to see?
00:20:52.680 Well, consider
00:20:53.220 the optic blind spot
00:20:54.300 by analogy.
00:20:55.960 You've probably been
00:20:56.580 shown this in school
00:20:57.420 where you close one eye
00:20:58.860 and then stare
00:20:59.680 at a fixation point
00:21:01.000 on a piece of paper.
00:21:02.680 And then you're asked
00:21:03.340 to notice that
00:21:03.920 a dot in the periphery
00:21:05.720 of your visual field
00:21:06.720 disappears when you're
00:21:08.200 just the right distance
00:21:09.380 from the paper.
00:21:11.220 If you close one eye now,
00:21:13.200 there's certainly
00:21:13.740 something in your visual field
00:21:14.780 that falls into
00:21:15.700 your blind spot
00:21:16.400 and yet you don't notice it.
00:21:18.340 And surely most people
00:21:19.140 in human history
00:21:19.880 have been totally unaware
00:21:21.180 that the blind spot
00:21:22.060 even exists.
00:21:23.700 And many of us
00:21:24.340 who know about it
00:21:25.020 go for decades
00:21:25.920 without thinking about it,
00:21:27.720 much less noticing it.
00:21:29.720 The absence of the self
00:21:31.880 is also there
00:21:33.280 to be noticed.
00:21:35.200 As with the blind spot,
00:21:36.640 the evidence for it
00:21:37.740 is not far away
00:21:39.460 or deep within.
00:21:41.420 It's almost too close
00:21:43.060 to be observed.
00:21:45.740 And for most people,
00:21:46.560 experiencing the absence
00:21:48.380 of self requires
00:21:50.100 considerable training.
00:21:51.720 And that's what
00:21:52.100 we're doing here.
00:21:53.760 It is possible to notice
00:21:55.560 that consciousness,
00:21:57.800 that in you
00:21:58.680 which is aware
00:21:59.380 of your experience
00:22:00.180 in this moment,
00:22:01.300 does not feel
00:22:02.600 like a self.
00:22:04.260 It does not feel
00:22:05.720 like I.
00:22:07.260 Rather,
00:22:07.800 whatever feels like I
00:22:09.260 is itself
00:22:10.580 another appearance
00:22:11.640 in consciousness.
00:22:13.580 Whatever you can feel
00:22:15.080 is being known
00:22:16.840 by this prior condition
00:22:18.820 which we're calling
00:22:20.140 consciousness
00:22:20.640 or awareness.
00:22:23.400 How can we know
00:22:24.420 that the conventional
00:22:25.800 sense of self
00:22:26.780 is an illusion?
00:22:28.360 Well,
00:22:28.780 the most compelling way
00:22:29.640 is to get yourself
00:22:30.340 in a position
00:22:30.860 to really look for it
00:22:32.120 and then find it absent.
00:22:34.140 And that's
00:22:34.760 the point of meditation.
00:22:36.880 When you really look
00:22:38.560 for this thing
00:22:40.020 that feels like I,
00:22:42.620 it vanishes.
00:22:43.380 And this is compelling
00:22:45.400 in the same way
00:22:46.120 that the disappearance
00:22:46.940 of any illusion
00:22:47.840 is compelling.
00:22:49.920 You thought something
00:22:50.680 was there
00:22:51.180 but upon closer inspection
00:22:53.120 you can see
00:22:54.580 that it isn't.
00:22:56.780 In this case,
00:22:57.660 you can feel
00:22:58.400 and know
00:22:59.180 that it isn't.
00:23:00.960 There's a general
00:23:01.820 intellectual
00:23:02.940 and epistemic
00:23:03.900 principle
00:23:04.500 at work here.
00:23:06.240 Whatever is there
00:23:06.960 when you're paying
00:23:07.660 the closest attention
00:23:08.880 stands a better chance
00:23:10.300 of being real
00:23:10.940 than what seems
00:23:11.760 to be there
00:23:12.340 when you're not
00:23:13.280 paying attention.
00:23:15.020 What doesn't survive
00:23:16.560 scrutiny
00:23:17.080 cannot be real.
00:23:20.060 Now,
00:23:20.320 as you get further
00:23:21.280 in the practice
00:23:21.840 of meditation,
00:23:22.960 you will discover
00:23:23.740 that there is no thinker
00:23:25.260 apart from your thoughts.
00:23:27.740 There's no one
00:23:28.700 producing
00:23:29.440 these thoughts
00:23:30.620 and there's no one
00:23:32.420 receiving them.
00:23:34.020 There's just consciousness
00:23:34.980 and its contents
00:23:35.940 as a matter of experience.
00:23:37.960 There's no one
00:23:38.720 who's choosing
00:23:39.620 the next thing you do.
00:23:40.780 thought
00:23:42.500 and intention
00:23:43.360 and choice
00:23:44.500 just arrives
00:23:45.860 and become effective
00:23:47.540 or not
00:23:48.480 based on prior
00:23:49.760 causes and conditions.
00:23:51.380 The feeling
00:23:52.300 that you
00:23:52.920 are in the driver's seat
00:23:54.260 able to pick
00:23:55.580 and choose
00:23:56.140 among thoughts
00:23:56.900 is itself
00:23:58.520 a thought
00:23:59.340 that has gone
00:24:00.680 unrecognized.
00:24:01.520 this feeling
00:24:03.900 of being a self
00:24:04.920 that can pick
00:24:06.220 and choose
00:24:06.740 is what it feels
00:24:08.760 like
00:24:09.160 to be thinking
00:24:10.300 without knowing
00:24:11.860 that you're thinking.
00:24:12.760 again,
00:24:20.000 those are
00:24:20.620 selections
00:24:21.620 from
00:24:22.360 some lessons
00:24:23.500 in the Waking Up app.
00:24:25.140 You can find out
00:24:26.100 more at
00:24:26.440 WakingUp.com
00:24:27.380 and
00:24:28.860 the new year
00:24:30.720 is off
00:24:31.060 to quite a start
00:24:32.040 and I'm wishing
00:24:33.520 you all
00:24:34.060 much
00:24:35.260 happiness
00:24:36.220 in it
00:24:36.980 wherever you can
00:24:38.200 find it.
00:24:38.580 Thank you.
00:24:58.100 Thank you.
00:25:03.300 Thank you.
00:25:07.520 Thank you.