Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

by Sam Harris

Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others.

separating spirituality from religion is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which is a translation of the Greek pneuma, meaning “breath.”

Wrong answers to any problem outnumber right ones by a wide margin, and it seems that it will always be easier to break things than to fix them.

There is now little question that how one uses one’s attention, moment to moment, largely determines what kind of person one becomes. Our minds—and lives—are largely shaped by how we use them.

It is always now. This might sound trite, but it is the truth.

Most people who believe they are meditating are merely thinking with their eyes closed.

distraction is the normal condition of our minds:

What we need to become happier and to make the world a better place is not more pious illusions but a clearer understanding of the way things are.

But it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life.

spirituality is not just important for living a good life; it is actually essential for understanding the human mind.

only 25 percent of Americans believe in evolution (while 68 percent believe in the literal existence of Satan).

the left hemisphere generally makes a unique contribution to language and to the performance of complex movements.

the right hemisphere is dominant for many higher cognitive abilities,

consciousness is the context in which the objects of experience appear—the

Christianity, in particular, presents impressive obstacles to thinking intelligently about the nature of the human mind, asserting, as it does, the real existence of individual souls who are subject to the eternal judgment of God.

Look closely enough at your own mind in the present moment, and you will discover that the self is an illusion.

we all talk to ourselves constantly—most of us merely have the good sense to keep our mouths shut.

thinking about what one is grateful for increases one’s feelings of well-being, motivation, and positive outlook toward the future.

Becoming suddenly angry, we tend to stay angry—and

Notice that suddenly paying attention to something else—something that no longer supports your current emotion—allows for a new state of mind.

We spend our lives lost in thought.

From the contemplative point of view, being lost in thoughts of any kind, pleasant or unpleasant, is analogous to being asleep and dreaming. It’s a mode of not knowing what is actually happening in the present moment.

not recognizing the present thought to be a transitory appearance in consciousness—is a delusion that produces nearly every species of human conflict and unhappiness.

One must be able to pay attention closely enough to glimpse what consciousness is like between thoughts—that is, prior to the arising of the next one.

Consciousness does not feel like a self.

What doesn’t survive scrutiny cannot be real.

people are consistently less happy when their minds are wandering, even when the contents of their thoughts are pleasant.

meditation could protect against age-related thinning of the cortex.

there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one’s thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present.

Being able to stand perfectly free of the feeling of self is the start of one’s spiritual journey, not its end.

meditation requires total acceptance of what is given in the present moment.

If you are anxious before giving a speech, become willing to feel the anxiety fully, so that it becomes a meaningless pattern of energy in your mind and body.

If there are important truths to be discovered through introspection, there must be better and worse ways to do this—and one should expect to meet a range of experts, novices, fools, and frauds along the way.

the only differences between a cult and a religion are the numbers of adherents and the degree to which they are marginalized by the rest of society.

A student’s moral intuitions and instincts for self-preservation can always be recast as symptoms of fear and attachment.

Psychopaths tend to make exceptionally good eye contact.

It is by ceasing to cling to the contents of consciousness—to our thoughts, moods, and desires—that we make progress.

Spirituality begins with a reverence for the ordinary that can lead us to insights and experiences that are anything but ordinary.