Making Sense - Sam Harris - #63 — Why Meditate？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

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00:00:46.680 Today I'm speaking once again to my friend Joseph Goldstein.

00:00:50.580 Joseph is a meditation teacher.

00:00:51.980 He started the Insight Meditation Society in Barrie, Massachusetts, where I did, I think

00:00:58.340 most of my retreats back in the day.

00:01:01.740 And he's been on two earlier podcasts, podcast number 4 and 15.

00:01:09.080 And if you haven't heard those, those are worth listening to because you find out who Joseph

00:01:13.380 is and how he got so deeply into practice.

00:01:16.020 It is no exaggeration to say that Joseph is as responsible as anyone for bringing the practice 1.00

00:01:22.680 of Vipassana, otherwise known as mindfulness, to the West from India.

00:01:29.140 Joseph is certainly one of the finest meditation teachers I know.

00:01:32.900 And today we take your questions in an AMA, and we deal with some basic questions like,

00:01:38.140 you know, why meditate in the first place?

00:01:40.560 And how long do negative emotions actually last when you pay attention to them?

00:01:46.740 But then we get into esoterica like selflessness and the Buddhist concept of enlightenment and

00:01:54.280 topics that will only be of interest, perhaps, to a subset of you.

00:01:58.960 And again, as always, if you find conversations like this valuable, you are free and encouraged

00:02:04.520 to support the podcast at samharris.org forward slash support.

00:02:10.360 And now I bring you Joseph Goldstein.

00:02:19.180 I am back here for a third podcast with my friend Joseph Goldstein.

00:02:23.280 Joseph, thank you for doing this once again.

00:02:25.520 My pleasure.

00:02:27.000 So we have taken questions from the internet this time around so as to ensure that we answer

00:02:34.340 questions that are interesting to people rather than try to find our way through the maze of

00:02:38.980 our minds together.

00:02:40.620 We went out on Twitter and Facebook and got a bunch of questions.

00:02:45.160 First, I got many questions about my meditation app, and I am increasingly embarrassed to say

00:02:51.940 it is still coming.

00:02:53.440 It is still coming, but I have just, it's been a long and somewhat painful education in what

00:02:59.980 is required to develop an app.

00:03:02.300 I'm confident that we will beta test this soon.

00:03:04.520 So more on that, hopefully within a month or so.

00:03:09.260 But Joseph, you already have a meditation app that you did with our friend Dan Harris.

00:03:13.520 So if you are hungry for a meditation app, you can get Joseph's immediately.

00:03:18.040 And that is called 10% Happier.

00:03:20.720 There are a few questions on why one would use an app and the utility of guided meditations.

00:03:25.960 And so we'll talk about that.

00:03:27.000 But Joseph is available to you right now on an app as a meditation teacher.

00:03:30.580 So, Joseph, the first question, why should I care about meditation practice or mindfulness?

00:03:38.600 Why should I start a practice like this?

00:03:40.820 What am I missing?

00:03:42.400 Well, I think the answer to that is really very simple.

00:03:46.380 The first time when I went to India, when I was looking for a teacher, I ended up in India,

00:03:52.600 Bodh Gaya.

00:03:53.780 That's where the place the Buddha was enlightened.

00:03:55.580 And I met my first teacher there, and he said something very simple to me the first time

00:04:00.660 I met him.

00:04:02.000 And I think it conveys the underlying reason why we meditate.

00:04:06.780 He said, if you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it.

00:04:11.800 And I just appreciated the simplicity of that.

00:04:14.560 There was nothing to join, no rituals, no ceremonies.

00:04:17.220 It's just the simple understanding that understanding ourselves is possible.

00:04:23.660 It's very pragmatic and very simple, and there is a methodology for doing it.

00:04:29.240 In that understanding of ourselves, we begin to see what creates suffering in our lives and

00:04:35.800 what brings greater happiness and peace.

00:04:38.680 And when we see that, we can make wiser choices.

00:04:41.040 And as we make wiser choices, we become happier.

00:04:45.400 And as we become happier, we make wiser choices in our lives.

00:04:48.900 So it becomes a spiral of greater fulfillment and greater ease.

00:04:53.980 So you would say there's a direct connection between understanding the nature of your mind,

00:04:59.680 and in particular, being able to observe its character moment to moment,

00:05:04.220 and actually living a wiser life and making better decisions that translate into your own happiness

00:05:11.260 or ceasing to suffer unnecessarily.

00:05:14.000 Definitely.

00:05:14.900 I mean, because we're all a mixture.

00:05:17.100 You know, we all have a whole range of skillful and unskillful thoughts.

00:05:23.120 And we begin to see very directly, without an intermediary,

00:05:27.720 you know, the kinds of thoughts and feelings and emotions that are productive of suffering

00:05:34.580 for ourselves and others.

00:05:36.100 You know, when we feel greedy or angry or envious or jealous or, you know,

00:05:42.300 a lot of what are called the afflictive emotions,

00:05:45.100 we can see directly and feel directly their nature.

00:05:49.520 And we say, oh, this would be good to let go of.

00:05:52.120 And we see those kind of thought patterns and emotions that are actually happiness-producing.

00:05:59.820 But this is not theoretical.

00:06:01.400 You know, that's the beauty of meditation, that it's not theoretical.

00:06:04.240 It's not just following what we read in the book.

00:06:07.480 We're actually experiencing for ourselves the nature of these thoughts, of these emotions.

00:06:14.320 And we see that, you know, when we're feeling generous, we're feeling kind,

00:06:18.100 we're feeling compassionate,

00:06:18.860 it makes us happy and it makes the people around us happy.

00:06:23.560 And so the choices become more obvious.

00:06:26.820 This is not to say that in the first hour of our meditation,

00:06:32.560 all the old habit patterns of our mind, the unskillful ones are going to disappear.

00:06:37.600 This is why it's called meditation practice.

00:06:40.900 You know, it takes a repeated seeing and learning to effect the transformation.

00:06:46.820 Well, can you say something about how being able to observe the nature of your own thoughts

00:06:53.220 and emotions and reactions, merely being able to observe it translates into being able

00:07:00.700 to change course in any way?

00:07:03.400 That's not intuitively obvious that that would be the case.

00:07:06.240 It happens, I think, in a couple of ways.

00:07:09.220 In one very obvious way, we begin to see the difference between being lost in a thought pattern,

00:07:19.180 where we're just carried away in a train of association, you know,

00:07:22.460 and we're just lost in the thought, in all the emotions involved with it.

00:07:27.760 And it can be lost for a short period of time, can be lost for a really long period of time.

00:07:32.440 We see the difference between that and being mindful that the thought and emotion are present.

00:07:40.120 So this is a huge understanding, because before people begin some kind of introspection,

00:07:48.320 you know, some kind of meditative discipline,

00:07:50.720 mostly we're just lost in and acting out whatever particular pattern of thoughts and emotions are there.

00:07:59.540 With meditation or with mindfulness, we're actually beginning to observe the fact that they're there as they're happening.

00:08:07.980 And so that gives us a little space.

00:08:09.600 It gives us the possibility of not being carried away by them.

00:08:13.380 And in that space, we have the choice.

00:08:15.300 Do I want to build on this?

00:08:17.500 Do I want to follow this?

00:08:18.720 Or do I want to let it go?

00:08:20.520 So that's one way the mindfulness gives us that freedom.

00:08:24.480 Second way is what we actually learn from being mindful.

00:08:30.420 And one of the things we learn is that all of these thoughts, emotions, and everything else are impermanent.

00:08:39.680 That they're there, and they're there for some time, and then they disappear.

00:08:44.180 And even though we all know this intellectually, we don't live it as if we know it.

00:08:49.900 You know, we take our thoughts and emotions to be so stable and who we are.

00:08:56.480 So seeing the impermanence of them again and again and again begins to loosen the bonds of attachment to them.

00:09:03.480 It's interesting to be precise in describing just how much of a change this is experientially

00:09:10.300 when you really grasp the impermanence of an emotion like anger, say.

00:09:14.880 So how long would you say you could stay angry without being lost in thought about the reasons why you should be angry?

00:09:24.740 So you're thinking about an argument you just had, say.

00:09:27.780 And you're not aware of a thought, that thought arising.

00:09:30.840 So you're identified with a thought.

00:09:32.120 You're lost in the thought.

00:09:33.440 You're getting angry.

00:09:34.840 And now, because you know how to practice mindfulness, you notice a thought as a thought.

00:09:40.180 Right?

00:09:40.800 You unhook from, you're no longer identified with that bit of language or image in your mind.

00:09:45.980 And the emotion of anger is still present because it's just, it's a matter of physiology.

00:09:50.580 It arose and it takes some time to subside.

00:09:54.120 It has some sort of half-life.

00:09:56.100 Most people are walking around with the impression that it's possible to stay angry for hours or even days.

00:10:04.800 Right?

00:10:05.820 How long would you think you could be angry if you were not subsequently lost in the next train of thought?

00:10:14.120 I think not very long.

00:10:17.560 Generally, when people are not watching their minds this carefully,

00:10:21.780 may not be realizing that there's a pretty continual stream of thoughts that's feeding the anger.

00:10:28.500 You know, and so we may catch a thought or two, see it, release a little bit, and maybe feel an easing of the anger.

00:10:37.880 And then 10 seconds later or a minute later, another thought comes, you know, which triggers the emotion again.

00:10:46.900 Without that continual feeding of the emotion, I don't know exactly how long it would last.

00:10:55.100 But it certainly wouldn't last as long as it usually does.

00:10:58.540 But I mean, I would put it on the order of seconds, not even minutes, and certainly not hours.

00:11:05.900 Right.

00:11:06.400 Like if you are actually completely unhooked from the discursive thinking that is producing the anger,

00:11:13.700 how long can the emotion of anger stay present in your mind?

00:11:18.240 You think you could be angry for five minutes?

00:11:20.020 Here this gets to be an interesting question because it's really about then how we define anger.

00:11:29.000 So, for example, the mind changes a lot more quickly than the body, right?

00:11:35.560 Just the rapidity of change.

00:11:37.320 So, the feeling of anger in the mind might disappear pretty quickly, as you say.

00:11:45.000 But there may be a residue of what we would call anger in terms of the bodily feeling.

00:11:51.440 Right.

00:11:51.800 In terms of the tension and the time.

00:11:52.960 Physiological arousal.

00:11:53.100 Yeah.

00:11:54.020 So, that may last a bit longer than the actual emotional feeling of anger in the mind.

00:12:01.140 But emotion seems to me a complex phenomenon that involves both the body and mind.

00:12:09.000 Yeah.

00:12:09.240 So, it's hard to isolate just the mental aspect.

00:12:13.840 Yeah.

00:12:14.460 Well, it also has the physiology of two different emotions can be very similar, and it's the

00:12:19.920 cognitive interpretation of what's going on.

00:12:22.360 Yes.

00:12:22.920 I think this is still known as the James Lang theory of emotion and psychology, going back

00:12:26.820 to William James.

00:12:28.040 Many, perhaps even before William James, have noticed that an emotion like fear or anxiety

00:12:33.700 is very similar to a positive emotion like excitement, and yet it's just the interpretation

00:12:39.620 of that arousal that makes for the difference.

00:12:42.620 So, when you're no longer interpreting, and then you just feel pure physiology, in my experience

00:12:49.740 at that moment, as you say, it goes to the question of what is an emotion, what is anger

00:12:55.020 in this case.

00:12:56.080 It's not mere physiological arousal, right?

00:12:58.580 It's arousal that has a psychological significance and points to, very likely, some subsequent goal-oriented

00:13:05.560 actions you may want to take based on this.

00:13:07.800 It's a motive or a set of intentions.

00:13:10.040 And when you break the spell of you are thinking about it, and all you're left with is the physiology,

00:13:16.540 I would say it ceases to be anger.

00:13:19.260 Yes.

00:13:19.740 It basically has all the psychological import of something like indigestion or a pain in

00:13:26.700 your knee, or something that really is just, has absolutely no implications at all.

00:13:30.860 It's just your body at that moment.

00:13:32.700 But then again, as you say, if in the next moment you are lost in thought about why you

00:13:36.540 have every right to be angry at this person, well, then it instantly becomes anger again.

00:13:41.160 There's another component of this, which is, and this is kind of what makes the meditation

00:13:45.940 so interesting because there are, there are just different levels to what's going on.

00:13:50.840 So, you know, so if we can unhook from the thoughts and we're just left with the physiological

00:13:54.680 remains, you know, of whatever the thought pattern was.

00:14:00.380 So then the question becomes, how are we relating to those physical energetic sensations?

00:14:08.440 If they're unpleasant, we may no longer be feeling anger towards the content of our previous

00:14:15.940 thoughts, but we may be feeling, we could say, aversion to the unpleasant sensations that

00:14:22.980 are the residue.

00:14:23.600 So that becomes another level to look at, you know, how's the mind relating to that energetic

00:14:29.740 phenomena?

00:14:30.820 Right.

00:14:30.880 That becomes another place of investigation.

00:14:33.620 So the flip side of this, and this is another, the other question we have more or less on this

00:14:39.140 topic, can meditation or mindfulness be bad for you?

00:14:43.020 Are there people who shouldn't meditate or shouldn't go on silent retreat?

00:14:47.580 And I guess I would add to this, you've just talked about how increasing your ability to

00:14:52.560 observe the flow of your own consciousness reduces suffering seemingly almost by definition

00:14:58.500 and gives you an ability to choose more wisely.

00:15:02.040 But is there a period in one's practice where seeing more actually just translates into more

00:15:09.460 suffering or new kinds of suffering that wouldn't be there otherwise?

00:15:13.780 So take both parts of that.

00:15:15.060 If, even if meditation is ultimately good for you, are there periods where it can certainly

00:15:19.460 seem to be bad for you?

00:15:20.640 And are there people for whom it's actually bad?

00:15:23.120 I think for different people at different times, it's not, I would say it's not recommended,

00:15:32.180 certainly in terms of intensive silent retreat, you know, so something might be good in short

00:15:39.240 doses, but in larger doses may not be helpful.

00:15:43.980 For example, if somebody is really suffering from a deep depression, the isolation of a meditation

00:15:52.800 retreat where people are in silence and not talking, that might be counterproductive.

00:15:57.740 I mean, what might be needed more is some kind of engagement with other people, with therapeutic

00:16:04.420 skills.

00:16:05.000 So that would be one, one area where it would be worth looking to see is the form of meditation,

00:16:14.220 the right form for what's going on.

00:16:16.460 And we should say that you do encounter this problem with some regularity on silent retreat,

00:16:22.280 where people who have some psychopathology like schizophrenia get in over their heads

00:16:26.860 and it's just objectively bad for them to be in isolation and silence.

00:16:31.180 Yes, I would say that that does happen, definitely.

00:16:35.000 And over the years we've experienced that is not the common experience for most people.

00:16:40.940 The practice and the various forms of practice work well, but there are these cases where it

00:16:46.880 doesn't.

00:16:48.140 So then there's the question of even if meditation is good for you, there can be periods where

00:16:54.600 it doesn't seem to be good for you in terms of the character of your experience is getting

00:16:58.200 worse by some metric.

00:17:00.360 This, this points to kind of a key question in understanding the appropriateness of meditation

00:17:07.680 at a particular time.

00:17:08.960 And it has less to do with what it is that's arising, whether what's arising is difficult

00:17:15.540 or not, because in meditation, lots of difficult things come, whether it's physical pain or really

00:17:21.680 difficult emotions, you know, or memories.

00:17:24.860 So sometimes we're really facing different aspects of suffering in our lives.

00:17:29.400 Because the question of whether it's skillful to continue and proceed really has to do with

00:17:36.760 the quality of balance in the mind and whether there's enough balance, enough mindfulness to

00:17:42.420 hold those difficulties without being overwhelmed by them, without getting caught up in them too

00:17:51.120 much.

00:17:52.120 I mean, we do get caught up to some extent until we learn how to, you know, create a place of

00:17:58.000 balance.

00:17:58.440 But that's where a teacher can be really helpful because very often when I'm teaching retreats

00:18:07.460 and other teachers as well, if we see somebody losing their balance, you know, really getting

00:18:13.520 overwhelmed by what's coming up, we'll very often suggest back off a little bit, you know,

00:18:21.720 and go for a walk or relax or do a little reading as a way of titrating the speed of the material

00:18:29.320 that may be coming up.

00:18:30.900 So it's very much a question of finding the right balance for dealing with particularly

00:18:37.700 difficult material.

00:18:40.160 The difficulties themselves are not a problem.

00:18:42.440 They come up for everybody, but it's really our capacity to be with them, either in a skillful

00:18:49.160 way or not.

00:18:50.160 And that's the key question.

00:18:52.260 The analogy I often use is to physical exercise.

00:18:55.720 So physical exercise is, in a generic sense, objectively good and basically good for everyone.

00:19:02.460 But if you have a specific injury, if you've got a bad knee, well, then you have to work

00:19:06.480 around that.

00:19:07.140 And there could be some exercises you just shouldn't do because it's synonymous with hurting and

00:19:12.060 already injured knee.

00:19:13.400 So there's all of those caveats.

00:19:15.540 And yet you can still say that exercise is good for you in general.

00:19:19.260 And there's a kind of a range of competence where you see, though you will never be, say,

00:19:24.260 an Olympic athlete, right?

00:19:25.920 You're not talking about me, are you?

00:19:26.960 Yeah, I will never be an Olympic athlete.

00:19:29.000 I can still see that the same principles by which an Olympic athlete becomes an Olympic

00:19:32.520 athlete apply to me and will make me as good as I can be.

00:19:35.580 I think that's a good analogy.

00:19:38.080 And my pole vault is terrible.

00:19:39.280 Have you interacted with Willoughby Britton, a scientist who has focused on the cautionary

00:19:46.400 tales of intensive meditation practice, where she thinks that some number of people are harmed

00:19:51.820 by meditation.

00:19:52.880 And we, in the scientific community, have to understand that more and be less boosterish

00:19:59.240 about meditation, certainly intensive meditation practice, and more honest that there's a potential

00:20:04.200 downside here.

00:20:04.940 I don't know her, and she's someone who ultimately I probably should have on the podcast, but is

00:20:09.340 there anything to react to in there beyond what we just said?

00:20:11.760 Well, I think she has pointed to the fact that in intensive practice, you know, where people

00:20:21.480 are on like a silent retreat, meditating all day long, it can go very deep.

00:20:27.480 We're really going into the psyche, you know, on levels that we usually don't in our ordinary

00:20:34.200 life.

00:20:34.580 So it's a powerful, it's a very powerful process.

00:20:38.000 And we're learning things about ourselves on many, many levels.

00:20:43.440 It's not just the content of our stories, which in some ways is the most obvious level, but

00:20:51.520 we're learning about the basic ephemerality of our experience.

00:20:58.680 And, you know, when we're experiencing the bodies in energy field dissolving, which can

00:21:05.900 be a meditative experience, it can be both exhilarating, but also for certain people, it could

00:21:11.780 be destabilizing, you know, because it's very different than our usual solid sense of self.

00:21:19.020 So I think she's pointing to that level of experience and the need to take a lot of care

00:21:27.100 when we enter into that realm.

00:21:31.100 And that's where well-trained teachers are really important, because if somebody's not familiar

00:21:37.260 with that terrain, as somebody enters into it, they may not be giving the best advice

00:21:43.400 for how to stay balanced with it.

00:21:46.020 And it's not to say that even well-trained teachers, you know, may make mistakes in offering

00:21:53.120 some guidance, although that doesn't happen so often when people are familiar with, you know,

00:22:00.680 with those experiences, as I said before, over the years of teaching, and something we've

00:22:07.240 learned, and it took some time to learn it, is to know when people should back off, you

00:22:14.140 know, when things are getting out of balance.

00:22:16.540 And with experience, that just becomes more clear.

00:22:21.820 Okay, next question.

00:22:23.860 I'd love to hear both of your thoughts on the use of meditation to cope with negative emotion.

00:22:28.040 And this is something we've already gotten into.

00:22:30.820 Is it fundamentally misguided from either of your perspectives to use meditation to make

00:22:35.400 yourself feel better when you aren't happy?

00:22:38.200 So this cuts to really something that falls out of the definition of mindfulness, which we

00:22:44.940 should probably just remind people what it entails as a matter of attention.

00:22:49.760 Mindfulness, by definition, is a type of mere attention to character of one's experience.

00:22:58.120 Which does not have an agenda.

00:23:00.780 You have to surrender your agenda to be mindful, because your agenda would be subtly or grossly

00:23:07.480 coloring your attention with grasping at what's pleasant or aversion to what's unpleasant.

00:23:12.700 So you have to be willing to just be aware of an unpleasant emotion, a negative emotion in

00:23:18.100 this case, or an unpleasant sensation, without seeking to change it.

00:23:23.220 And yet, the reason why one is mindful in the first place is implicitly goal-oriented,

00:23:28.180 because you want to change the character of your experience.

00:23:30.800 You want to be less distracted.

00:23:31.860 You want to stop suffering unnecessarily.

00:23:34.480 You want to be able to make the wise choices of the sort that you just described.

00:23:37.240 So how do you deal with that apparent paradox in the moment?

00:23:42.500 I think this points to an interesting question that I think is coming up more and more these

00:23:50.120 days with the growing popularity of mindfulness in more secular situations.

00:23:57.800 And it really points to the need to define how we're using the word mindfulness in different

00:24:14.160 contexts, because in the ordinary way it's being used now, broadly speaking, I think one could define it in

00:24:27.520 the way you suggested of just paying attention in the moment, you know, being undistracted, coming back when

00:24:35.860 you lost.

00:24:36.400 So just a very kind of simple, generic kind of awareness, which is very helpful.

00:24:45.120 That begins to open us up to a different understanding of our minds.

00:24:50.700 But there are also deeper meanings of mindfulness, which become more significant when we undertake

00:25:00.220 it or understand it as a vehicle for something more than simply being a little happier in the

00:25:08.980 moment, but rather see mindfulness as a vehicle or a methodology for what we could call awakening

00:25:16.580 or, you know, a more profound spiritual understanding, that there's something else that it has

00:25:25.640 the potential to reveal, in that meaning of mindfulness, there's not only a choiceless awareness,

00:25:35.020 you know, which you were talking about, but embedded in the meaning of mindfulness in that context

00:25:42.200 is also, you could say, a discerning wisdom of what is skillful and what is unskillful,

00:25:50.160 what causes, or wholesome and unwholesome, whatever words you'd like to use.

00:25:56.320 So there is the acknowledgement and the understanding embedded in that kind of mindfulness that some

00:26:04.820 mind states are the cause or cause us or others of suffering, that create suffering in our experience,

00:26:15.020 both for ourselves and others, and there are certain mind states which are freeing.

00:26:18.880 So already there's a wisdom component, you know, in that kind of mindfulness, which takes us a bit

00:26:26.780 further than simply being attentive to what's arising. It's like, it's attentive to what's arising,

00:26:34.960 but also learning from being attentive. You know, what is it that we're actually learning from being mindful?

00:26:41.540 And in that, there is, you could say, there is an implicit choice being made to cultivate the skillful and to let go of the unskillful.

00:26:53.240 Except in the moment, there's another level there where the choicelessness is actually the deeper insight in that if you can truly be mindful of the anger,

00:27:04.440 say, that was there a moment ago, as anger, because you were identified with thought and not being mindful.

00:27:09.700 If you're truly mindful in the next moment, then you realize that anger is just as good an object of mindfulness,

00:27:18.120 or, you know, the residue of anger is just as good an object of mindfulness as anything else, including a skillful emotion.

00:27:25.500 You know, this is the phrase, one taste in the Tibetan tradition.

00:27:27.980 Yes.

00:27:28.480 So the agenda goes away in that moment of mindfulness.

00:27:32.040 Yes. It's almost like, I'm not sure I remember this correctly, so you might clarify it if I don't,

00:27:39.640 but that Zen, that Zen teaching about, in the beginning, trees are trees and rivers are rivers.

00:27:48.400 First there is a mountain, then there is.

00:27:52.060 It's his Donovan song, yeah.

00:27:54.240 It was first a Zen teaching, then it was a Donovan song.

00:27:57.120 So things are, first we see them as being ordinary, you know, so that's the first kind of attention.

00:28:03.000 We're just seeing things arise without this discernment.

00:28:07.540 Then we're seeing them with a discernment of what's skillful and unskillful.

00:28:13.500 And through seeing that, we drop into the level you just described, where we're experiencing everything as being empty.

00:28:19.360 You know, empty of substance and therefore equal in that sense.

00:28:24.180 It's very few people who can jump to and sustain that level.

00:28:30.340 There's a whole foundation of understanding that makes that possible.

00:28:36.380 And I think in all the meditative traditions that's understood,

00:28:40.920 in the Tibetan tradition and certainly in the Tervata tradition,

00:28:44.920 there are practices which help to stabilize that deeper level.

00:28:50.000 Right. So in the beginning of virtually any tradition, I wouldn't say every, but certainly most,

00:28:57.300 there's an acknowledgement that there are certain classically positive mental states that are a better foundation for exploring

00:29:04.640 than the classically negative mental states that just entangle you in your own neurotic misadventures.

00:29:10.480 Exactly. And that discernment actually provides the motivation for going deeper, for going to the other level.

00:29:18.100 Because if one is not seeing that, why do anything?

00:29:22.460 And this is, I think, a cautionary note.

00:29:25.720 It's very easy to bypass.

00:29:28.880 You know, sometimes people talk about emotional bypass and they jump to a level where,

00:29:34.560 oh, everything's empty, it doesn't matter.

00:29:37.700 There's also, you could call it a meditative bypass.

00:29:40.600 Yes. You know, oh, everything is equal, therefore it doesn't matter what I do.

00:29:46.540 Right.

00:29:47.020 Or what kinds of thoughts are being cultivated.

00:29:50.140 But that's missing an important piece.

00:29:53.160 You know, even though we eventually come to the place of what you called one taste,

00:29:57.280 that comes through a very clear discernment, you know, of what on another level we see,

00:30:04.820 oh yeah, this is helpful.

00:30:06.220 This is wholesome.

00:30:07.140 This is not.

00:30:07.780 I think the bypass, and I've seen this, you know, in various, you know, meditators and communities

00:30:16.080 where people can justify unwholesome actions with the rubric, it's all empty.

00:30:24.600 Yeah. Well, you can see some film footage of Rajneesh's community and get a sense of where that leads.

00:30:30.900 I mean, once you admit to yourself that no matter how much you're meditating,

00:30:34.500 a significant percentage of your time will be spent merely captive to the contents and character of your thought,

00:30:42.560 then it matters what you tend to think and feel about other people, say,

00:30:47.100 or the kinds of relationships you form on that basis and all the rest.

00:30:50.720 So I just want to jump in here for a minute.

00:30:52.420 I think that's why it's important and acknowledged, as you say, in most meditative or spiritual traditions,

00:31:00.220 that there needs to be an ethical foundation to the practice.

00:31:05.780 Because until the mind is extremely well-trained, we do get lost in the conditioning, you know, of our habit patterns.

00:31:16.640 And so we will be acting out both the more positive and more negative thought patterns and emotional patterns.

00:31:23.580 Having an explicit ethical foundation becomes another kind of support and protection.

00:31:31.080 So as we're about to do something, maybe we're about to lie, you know, or to speak unskillfully.

00:31:39.220 If we have in our minds, no, that's, this is unethical.

00:31:45.620 This is, this is a harmful action.

00:31:48.560 Just that, you know, in that moment can become a reminder to actually pay attention.

00:31:55.100 Say more about speaking unskillfully.

00:31:57.300 Obviously, that's a term of, of art or jargon within Buddhism.

00:32:01.640 What are the range of things that covers?

00:32:03.660 I love talking about this because this is a practice that for everybody can have such a tremendous impact in our lives.

00:32:14.400 Mostly because we speak a lot, you know, we, we get up in the morning, we spend most of the day or a good part of the day speaking.

00:32:20.480 I think very few people actually pay attention before they speak to what they're going to say.

00:32:31.020 And I've, you know, I've certainly seen this in myself enough times where words seem to just come tumbling out in the enthusiasm one way or another of the moment.

00:32:41.560 Also the intention behind what they're saying.

00:32:43.300 Well, exactly.

00:32:43.900 Why are they saying that?

00:32:44.800 Exactly, you know, very often there is a motivation to divide or to cause harm in some way or to speak what is untrue.

00:32:54.500 Well, one of my favorites, which it amuses me to see it, is what in, in the Buddhist tradition is called useless talk, where it serves no purpose.

00:33:07.580 And the, the word in Pali, which is the ancient language of India that a lot of the texts are written in.

00:33:14.800 The Pali word for useless talk, it's, it's really onomatopoeia because the Pali word is sampapalapa.

00:33:22.540 So it sounds just like what it is.

00:33:24.500 And very often I'll be in a conversation, you know, with friends or group of people and just see the urge to say something that is completely useless.

00:33:35.620 And it's just a way of declaring, here I am.

00:33:39.640 That's its only purpose.

00:33:40.980 And when I see that, when I can catch that impulse, see that this is sampapalapa, this is useless, and refrain, it actually feels good.

00:33:53.600 It feels like a conservation of energy.

00:33:55.740 It's not, it's not just spilling out, you know, verbal energy.

00:34:00.500 And it makes our words more valuable.

00:34:03.080 People have more respect for what we say, if what we say is useful in some way.

00:34:09.280 So it's just one, one example.

00:34:12.660 I think there might be ways in which the Buddhist conception of right speech may not totally map on to what we understand about human speech now.

00:34:26.420 So, for instance, like gossip is a classic example of wrong speech in a Buddhist sense.

00:34:33.040 And you can see how, you can see how divisive gossip often is.

00:34:36.580 You can see how you tend to feel when you are around people who are gossiping, especially if it's malicious gossip.

00:34:44.820 The impulse in oneself to dish about somebody who's not present can certainly seem, under scrutiny, seem like, you know, not the noblest of things.

00:34:53.860 But gossip also does serve a function.

00:34:57.000 And in many cases, it serves a good social function.

00:35:01.460 Gossiping about others serves a function.

00:35:04.360 And living in a context where you know you might be gossiped about, so you have a reputation that you are concerned to manage, that also serves a function.

00:35:13.300 It actually builds in a kind of moral shame.

00:35:16.780 And it puts a few brakes on the system, you know, and people who are totally shameless, well, some of them get elected president of the United States.

00:35:25.040 But in the usual case, it doesn't work out quite that well.

00:35:28.960 So what do you think about gossip?

00:35:31.200 Do you just think it's intrinsically bad across the board?

00:35:33.500 No, I think what you're pointing to is that we use that term to cover quite a wide range of speech.

00:35:41.420 And I would say kind of the dividing line or a dividing line between what one might call useful gossip and harmful gossip.

00:35:53.900 One dividing line, which is very interesting to observe, is what our motivation is.

00:35:58.560 You know, is our motivation really to harm someone, you know, or to cause divisiveness?

00:36:06.280 Or is it in some way the sharing of information that seems useful to share?

00:36:12.980 Because if the motivation is to harm, in the repetition of that kind of speech, we are creating within ourselves a toxic mental environment.

00:36:26.240 And we're creating in our own mind stream impulses and actions filled with some degree of aversion, of hatred, of fear, whatever the unwholesome motivation is.

00:36:43.020 So we're just strengthening these forces in the mind that cause us suffering, you know, or creating an inner world for ourselves that's not a peaceful one.

00:36:52.540 As well as, you know, causing harm to others.

00:36:57.220 So I would say really looking at the motivation behind whatever it is that we're calling gossip is a key element.

00:37:07.540 But what about the case where the motivation certainly isn't obviously noble, but nor is it obviously malicious?

00:37:14.040 It seems to me that most gossip arises on the basis of people wanting to have amusing, entertaining conversations.

00:37:23.160 So like, I have a great, oh, you won't believe what happened to X.

00:37:25.940 It's not that I have a malicious attitude toward X.

00:37:30.880 It's not that I want, necessarily want to harm X's reputation with you.

00:37:37.220 But this is just something amusing that has come to mind.

00:37:42.260 And the crucial variable for me, I guess, now I'm kind of looking for the algorithm that covers all of these cases.

00:37:49.520 The measure of the toxicity of any of these moments is, I think, largely in the distance between how I'm talking about X now to you

00:38:01.060 and how I would be willing to talk about X knowing that X was going to overhear it or if X were in the room, right?

00:38:07.220 If there's a drastic difference there, that suggests something unskillful, to put it in Buddhist terms, about my attitude and motives and all the rest.

00:38:16.920 No, I think that's a good, simple frame in which to assess.

00:38:22.420 I think there is a more subtle level which would not fall within that framework.

00:38:29.200 And that is something that I've noticed in myself, and I see it in others as well.

00:38:33.120 Even in what seems like benign gossip, kind of the example you say, an interesting aspect to pay attention to is whether in some way, whether speaking in that way is coming from or reinforces a sense of self.

00:38:52.960 And I think in very subtle ways, even when it's, you know, it's non-malicious and we're not intending to harm, very often there's just a...

00:39:02.320 A self-aggrandizing motive.

00:39:04.620 Something, or self-satisfaction, or...

00:39:07.520 Schadenfreude, or...

00:39:08.620 Something.

00:39:09.220 And so that would just be worth investigating, you know, to see whether that's there or not, you know.

00:39:18.060 Let's talk about that, because this notion that something about the success of meditation translates into an erosion of self, right?

00:39:28.900 A sense of self, yeah.

00:39:29.940 That is surprising to most people, and on its face, I think, undesirable to most people.

00:39:36.420 And it's also something you don't find very much in what you call the secularization of mindfulness.

00:39:43.540 Mindfulness as a useful thing to have in your business toolkit, or your efficiency toolkit, or your, you know, something a life coach would give you to improve your functioning in one domain or another.

00:39:56.400 So, how do you view the secularization and popularization of mindfulness in the absence of a clear teaching about selflessness or the illusoriness of the self and the other elements of classic Buddhist anchor to the practice?

00:40:16.360 Basically, I think it's great.

00:40:17.780 I think mindfulness at whatever level, and this seems to be borne out, you know, in people's experience, when it's taught in a secular way, it seems to be helpful.

00:40:29.160 People are getting something from it, you know, so I think that's great.

00:40:33.620 I don't have any problems with that at all, and I'm glad that it's happening.

00:40:38.520 In that, I'm hoping that the deeper aspects of the practice and the teachings are not lost for those who want to pursue them.

00:40:52.380 That's all.

00:40:53.240 So people are not left with the impression that that's all that mindfulness can offer.

00:40:59.320 You know, if people choose to stay with that, we could say, level of practice, that's fine, because it definitely enhances the quality of one's life, and there's more.

00:41:13.580 And so, I think it's just helpful, even in the teaching of secular mindfulness, for people who are aware of the greater depth of potential that's possible, even just to mention that.

00:41:25.180 You know, that for those of you who are interested, there are other possibilities as well in this practice.

00:41:33.440 That's also the whole spectrum, you know, of what's possible is known.

00:41:38.900 If I recall correctly, there is a Buddhist sutta.

00:41:43.080 This is where my limits as a Pali scholar will likely show themselves, but isn't there a sutta called the Mahamangala Sutta,

00:41:52.160 where the Buddha talked about different levels of happiness, and basically, it's just a straightforward acknowledgement that there's a hierarchy of happiness,

00:42:00.000 or you have many tiers to happiness, where, you know, the fact that there are deeper, more profound forms of happiness

00:42:07.320 that go into very esoteric areas of things like Buddhahood, that doesn't negate that every one of these steps is a step in the direction of happiness.

00:42:16.400 So, just having a healthy family is a form of happiness, and it just goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the esoterica of nirvana.

00:42:24.260 Just, there's the flip side of that as well.

00:42:27.900 For those people who might be thinking that by going or aiming for, you know, the higher happiness,

00:42:36.580 somehow they're going to miss out on the kinds of happiness we're more familiar with.

00:42:43.700 My first teacher, his name was Munindraji, he used to say something which I really loved.

00:42:50.580 He said, if you aim for the highest happiness, all the others come along the way.

00:42:56.560 So, it's not a question of missing out on anything, it's actually enhancing the probability that we'll experience all the kinds of happiness

00:43:06.860 because we understand their causes, we understand what gives rise to them.

00:43:11.940 That's a nice sentiment.

00:43:14.080 I'm not so sure I've seen that borne out in the Dharma community.

00:43:18.380 What I believe I've seen among Buddhists and hippies and New Agers and people who have, quote, 0.63

00:43:24.740 aimed at the highest happiness in explicitly, you know, meditative terms,

00:43:29.040 I feel like I've seen a lot of casualties of the Dharma.

00:43:33.840 I've seen people who have, because they spent, you know, crucial years of their lives engaged in these esoteric pursuits,

00:43:42.220 they actually didn't become self-actualized in ways that they really would want to have been

00:43:49.600 to access ordinary levels of happiness, to have ordinary careers or to start families at the right time

00:43:55.000 or to make money when it was easy to make money so that they had money when it was harder to make money,

00:44:01.200 you know, when they're older.

00:44:02.500 And so there's a kind of mismatch between the enlightenment project,

00:44:07.680 we should get to what the most esoteric goal of meditation actually is,

00:44:11.340 but I feel like I've seen people who, I guess, fell through the cracks in a way,

00:44:15.780 because it's hard, it's obviously, it's hard to, to reach the goal.

00:44:19.160 It's hard to meditate so effectively that your feeling of well-being becomes impregnable

00:44:27.000 and is no longer dependent on anything substantive happening in your life, right?

00:44:32.420 So it's hard to become the person who doesn't really care whether you got to have kids,

00:44:36.800 if you're the person who really want, you know, really wanted kids, right?

00:44:39.700 But now you've spent 20 years in Nepal studying with llamas and you miss that chapter of your life. 0.97

00:44:45.840 So, I mean, do you want to say anything about the casualties of the 60s or the dharma

00:44:50.320 or any other way you want to frame it?

00:44:53.140 Well, I think the 60s are fast fading into the mists of history.

00:44:58.940 The 60s are back.

00:45:00.760 Psychedelics are now being used in science now.

00:45:03.400 I think the point you raised is an important one in that undertaking a path of practice

00:45:11.260 in the way that you talked about really requires or is helped by a certain level of,

00:45:19.940 you could say, emotional maturity or understanding and realistic assessment,

00:45:24.920 both of one's life, one's opportunities, one's aspirations, one's goals,

00:45:29.220 and to somehow integrate all of that in one's decision.

00:45:36.000 So there are many ways to practice.

00:45:37.980 And even in the Buddhist time, many lay people practiced and achieved high levels of realization.

00:45:43.360 So if there is that strong wish to both go as deep as possible, you know, in a spiritual path

00:45:53.780 and also live a fulfilled, we could say, worldly life, it's helpful to know that about oneself.

00:46:01.840 And so then one makes the choices appropriate to that.

00:46:05.460 And it may not be going off for 20 years to Nepal.

00:46:08.440 You know, we may be doing intensive practice in ways that fit into the more worldly aspirations,

00:46:16.020 but it's really no different than, you know, somebody who is, just has this thirst or hunger

00:46:24.920 or passion to become an artist, you know, and they devote years of their life to their art.

00:46:32.200 And they may never be a Rembrandt, you know, and they may end up in a worldly situation

00:46:41.140 that's not so successful in worldly terms, but they have fulfilled that side of themselves.

00:46:49.140 And so I think it's the same thing.

00:46:50.460 Some people have a passion for this kind of practice and are willing to say,

00:46:55.800 okay, whatever comes will come from it.

00:46:59.280 And as I said, other people may also be very dedicated, but want to be more inclusive of

00:47:06.480 other aspects of their lives.

00:47:08.180 So I think both, both are really possible.

00:47:11.340 And there'll be some people who make mistakes, you know, who make the wrong choice, which happens

00:47:17.240 in every arena.

00:47:19.700 Let's talk about this, this concept of realization.

00:47:22.860 You just used that term enlightenment, I guess an earlier stage could be called awakening.

00:47:28.280 I mean, what, what do these words mean?

00:47:30.540 And how do you explain them to someone who hasn't had any experience in meditation?

00:47:35.880 I think the simplest and most pragmatic way of understanding it, and I think we probably

00:47:41.460 have talked about this before in previous discussions.

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - January 31, 2017

#63 — Why Meditate？

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