Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

by Sam Harris

The way we think about experience can completely determine how we feel about it.

Becoming suddenly angry, we tend to stay angry—and this requires that we actively produce the feeling of anger. We do this by thinking about our reasons for being angry—recalling

our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as appearances in consciousness—is a primary source of human suffering.

“It may not be coincidental that [you] use phrases like ‘self conscious’ when you really mean that you are conscious of others being conscious of you.”

A student’s moral intuitions and instincts for self-preservation can always be recast as symptoms of fear and attachment. Consequently, even the most extraordinarily cruel or degrading treatment at the hands of a guru can be interpreted as being for one’s own good: