Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

by Sam Harris

I grabbed buckets and salad bowls to catch the falling water, we were responding to the ineluctable tug of physical reality. But my suffering was entirely the product of my thoughts. Whatever the needs of the moment, I had a choice: I could do what was required calmly, patiently, and attentively, or do it in a state of panic. Every moment of the day—indeed, every moment throughout one’s life—offers an opportunity to be relaxed and responsive or to suffer unnecessarily. We can address mental suffering of this kind on at least two levels. We can use thoughts themselves as an antidote, or we can stand free of thought altogether.

And if, like many people, you tend to be vaguely unhappy much of the time, it can be very helpful to manufacture a feeling of gratitude by simply contemplating all the terrible things that have not happened to you, or to think of how many people would consider their prayers answered if they could only live as you are now. The mere fact that you have the leisure to read this book puts you in very rarefied company. Many people on earth at this moment can’t even imagine the freedom that you currently take for granted.

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

Most readers will be familiar with this experience: Something bad has happened in your life—a person has died, a relationship has ended, you have lost your job—but there is a brief interval after awakening before memory imposes its stranglehold. It often takes a moment or two for one’s reasons for being unhappy to come online.

My mind begins to seem like a video game: I can either play it intelligently, learning more in each round, or I can be killed in the same spot by the same monster, again and again.

But it can be liberating to see how thoughts pull the levers of emotion—and how negative emotions in turn set the stage for patterns of thinking that keep them active and coloring one’s mind. Seeing this process clearly can mean the difference between being angry, depressed, or fearful for a few moments and being so for days, weeks, and months on end.

Without continually resurrecting the feeling of anger, it is impossible to stay angry for more than a few moments. While I can’t promise that meditation will keep you from ever again becoming angry, you can learn not to stay angry for very long. And when talking about the consequences of anger, the difference between moments and hours—or days—is impossible to exaggerate.

Notice that suddenly paying attention to something else—something that no longer supports your current emotion—allows for a new state of mind. Observe how quickly the clouds can part. These are genuine glimpses of freedom. The truth, however, is that you need not wait for some pleasant distraction to shift your mood. You can simply pay close attention to negative feelings themselves, without judgment or resistance.

Thinking is indispensable to us. It is essential for belief formation, planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other capacities that make us human.

But our habitual identification with thought—that is, our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as appearances in consciousness—is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one’s head.

Without significant training in meditation, remaining aware—of anything—for a full minute is just not in the cards. We spend our lives lost in thought. The question is, what should we make of this fact? In the West, the answer has been “Not much.” In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering.

Thoughts themselves are not a problem, but being identified with thought is. Taking oneself to be the thinker of one’s thoughts—that is, 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. It doesn’t matter if your mind is wandering over current problems in set theory or cancer research; if you are thinking without knowing you are thinking, you are confused about who and what you are. The practice of meditation is a method of breaking the spell of thought.

The first sign of progress will be noticing how distracted you are. But if you persist in your practice, you will eventually get a taste of real concentration and begin to see thoughts themselves as mere appearances arising in a wider field of consciousness.

Long before reaching this kind of stability in meditation, however, one can discover that the sense of self—the sense that there is a thinker behind one’s thoughts, an experiencer amid the flow of experience—is an illusion.

It isn’t enough to know, in the abstract, that thoughts continually arise or that one is thinking at this moment, for such knowledge is itself mediated by thoughts that are arising unrecognized. It is the identification with these thoughts—that is, the failure to recognize them as they spontaneously appear in consciousness—that produces the feeling of “I.” 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. Once one realizes this, the status of thoughts themselves, as transient expressions of consciousness, can be understood.

most of us don’t feel merely identical to our bodies. We seem to be riding around inside our bodies. We feel like inner subjects that can use the body as a kind of object. This last impression is an illusion that can be dispelled. The selflessness of consciousness is in plain view in every present moment—and yet, it remains difficult to see.

The absence of the self is also there to be noticed. As with the optic blind spot, the evidence is not far away or deep within; rather, it is almost too close to be observed. For most people, experiencing the intrinsic selflessness of consciousness requires considerable training.

The absence of the self is also there to be noticed. As with the optic blind spot, the evidence is not far away or deep within; rather, it is almost too close to be observed. For most people, experiencing the intrinsic selflessness of consciousness requires considerable training.

What you are calling “I” is itself a feeling that arises among the contents of consciousness. Consciousness is prior to it, a mere witness of it, and, therefore, free of it in principle.

What you are calling “I” is itself a feeling that arises among the contents of consciousness. Consciousness is prior to it, a mere witness of it, and, therefore, free of it in principle.

Many scientists use the term self to refer to the totality of our inner lives.

Many scientists use the term self to refer to the totality of our inner lives.

The self that I am discussing throughout this book—the illusory, albeit reliable, source of so much suffering and confusion—is the feeling that there is an inner subject, behind our eyes, thinking our thoughts and experiencing our experience.

The self that I am discussing throughout this book—the illusory, albeit reliable, source of so much suffering and confusion—is the feeling that there is an inner subject, behind our eyes, thinking our thoughts and experiencing our experience.

We must distinguish between the self and the myriad mental states—self-recognition, volition, memory, bodily awareness—with which it can be associated.

We must distinguish between the self and the myriad mental states—self-recognition, volition, memory, bodily awareness--with which it can be associated.

If we questioned him further, asking, “And where are you? Where is your self?” he would probably say something like “What do you mean? I’m here too. I just don’t know who I am.”

If we questioned him further, asking, “And where are you? Where is your self?” he would probably say something like “What do you mean? I’m here too. I just don't know who I am."

Only his memories are missing.

Only his memories are missing.

“out-of-body experience” (OBE). The sense of leaving one’s body is a staple of mystical literature and has been reported across many cultures. It is often associated with epilepsy, migraine, sleep paralysis, and, as we will see in chapter 5, the “near-death experience.” It may occur in as much as 10 percent of the population. During an OBE, the subject feels that she has physically left her body—and

“out-of-body experience” (OBE). The sense of leaving one’s body is a staple of mystical literature and has been reported across many cultures. It is often associated with epilepsy, migraine, sleep paralysis, and, as we will see in chapter 5, the “near-death experience.” It may occur in as much as 10 percent of the population. During an OBE, the subject feels that she has physically left her body.

A brain area called the temporal-parietal junction—a region known to be involved in sensory integration and body representation—seems to be responsible for this effect.

A brain area called the temporal-parietal junction—a region known to be involved in sensory integration and body representation—seems to be responsible for this effect.

It is possible to experience oneself as (apparently) outside a body. The self, as the implied hub of cognition, perception, emotion, and behavior, can remain stable across even wholesale changes in the contents of consciousness

It is possible to experience oneself as (apparently) outside a body. The self, as the implied hub of cognition, perception, emotion, and behavior, can remain stable across even wholesale changes in the contents of consciousness.

If the self is the sense of being the subject of experience, it should not be conflated with a wider range of experiences. “I” refers to the feeling that our faculties have been appropriated, that a center of will and cognition interior to the body, somewhere behind the face, is doing the seeing, hearing, and thinking.

If the self is the sense of being the subject of experience, it should not be conflated with a wider range of experiences. “I” refers to the feeling that our faculties have been appropriated, that a center of will and cognition interior to the body, somewhere behind the face, is doing the seeing, hearing, and thinking.