Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion

by Sam Harris

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

Primarily, that means learning to recognize thoughts as thoughts—as transient appearances in consciousness—and to no longer be distracted by them, if only for short periods of time.

every moment throughout one’s life—offers an opportunity to be relaxed and responsive or to suffer unnecessarily.

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.

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.

“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.

The ability to recognize and interpret the mental activity of others is essential for normal cognitive and social development, and deficits in this area contribute to a variety of mental disorders, including autism.

The whole brain is involved in making us what we are.

“a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”

It has long been known that stress, especially early in life, alters brain structure.

In the broadest sense, however, meditation is simply the ability to stop suffering in many of the usual ways, if only for a few moments at a time. How could that not be a skill worth cultivating?

The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of well-being that is inherent to the nature of our minds.

In cults and other fringe spiritual communities, we often find a collection of needy and credulous dropouts ruled by a charismatic psychotic or psychopath.

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.

If one person on earth possessed psychic powers to any significant degree, this would be among the easiest facts to authenticate in a lab.

the ability to meditate—to rest as consciousness for a few moments prior to the arising of the next thought—can offer a profound relief from mental suffering.

At its best, religion is a set of stories that recount the ethical and contemplative insights of our wisest ancestors. But these stories come to us bundled with ancient confusion and perennial lies.