Transcript

BONUS: Sam Harris Guided Meditations and Lessons

Hello, ladies and gents, this is Tim Ferris and welcome to an ultra short Commercial free. edition of the Tim Ferris show. This is a companion episode to a longer episode with Sam Harris. that came out at the same time as this episode. So I encourage you to check that out. This is for those who want to jump right into the guided meditations and lessons from his app, Waking Up, which I've been incredibly impressed by. You can check it out at wakingup.com and uh you will find Lessons two seventeen and thirty one. So days two seventeen and thirty one for different styles of meditation practice, even though in the app itself.

There is a longer Logical progression. It's very gradual. And you'll find lessons including the logic of practice. So with that having been said Please enjoy.

these guided meditations and lessons with Sam. Harris. Welcome to day two of the Waking Up course.

Once again, take a seat. Either in a chair. Or cross legged on a cushion. It's good to sit as comfortably as you can. And it's usually best to be sitting

As straight. As you can. Now close your eyes. and become aware of the sensations of sitting. Feel your arms at your sides.

And perhaps take a few deep breaths. Just allow gravity to settle you. Into your seat. Now, as you did yesterday.

Notice where you feel the breath. Most clearly. Either at the tip of the nose. Or the rising and falling of your abdomen. Or chest.

It doesn't matter where you pay attention to the breath. And you can change your focus. From session to session, if you like. But for the moment just pick one spot. And focus there.

There's nothing especially significant. About the breath. But it's something you always have with you. And it's as good as any other sense object. As a basis for training your powers of attention.

Eventually the practice will incorporate everything that arises in consciousness. Just feel the mere sensations. Of breathing. From the beginning of the inhalation. To the pause between

Breaths. And follow the exhalation. To the end. Trying to cover the breath. With your awareness.

And once again there's no need to control You're breathing. Just let it come however it comes. doing here is sharpening the only tool you really have. Your mind.

This is what you take with you in any situation in life. This is what determines how you respond. To emotional stress. and physical pain. In every other difficulty.

you encounter. This is the basis for every decision you make. And every interaction you have with other people. And as you begin to observe it. You'll notice

Perhaps with growing amazement. That your mind is totally out of control. As you try to pay attention to the breath You'll begin to notice that the primary obstacle To your paying attention.

It's thinking. Thoughts continually arise. And you forget that you're even trying to meditate at all. And this happens over the course of mere seconds. Just try to count.

The next one. Ten breaths. Without getting distracted. You can silently in your mind count one On the inhalation.

And one again on the exhalation. And then two. See if you can get to ten. Unless you have a lot of concentration. You probably

Or unable to tell. How precarious Your awareness of the breath. Actually was. How your attention was being buffeted.

On all sides. But discursive thought. Now the goal isn't to stop your thoughts, but Or to suppress any emotion. that might arise along with them.

It is rather to notice these mental events clearly and to experience them fully. More fully, in fact. To recognize them. as appearances in consciousness the moment they arise.

But that is generally a very difficult thing to do in the beginning. So for the time being The moment you discover That you're thinking. Just observe it.

And come back to the breath. In this final minute Of the meditation. Just start again. Just feel the next breath.

As it comes. Okay. Well just take a moment To take stock of how you're feeling. Whether you're tired.

Or restless. Or calm. Whether your experience was pleasant or unpleasant isn't really the point. What you're learning here is a new skill. And unless you're coming to this course already knowing how to meditate.

You can't expect to be able to do it well. In the beginning. As the practice develops over the next days and weeks, You'll see that you do less. Not more.

than you normally do. You're not adding. An artifice. to your experience in the present moment. Rather you're simply becoming less distracted.

The purpose of meditation is to discover what your mind is like when you're no longer perpetually identified with the contents of your thoughts. And to make progress you simply need to be willing to To begin again. And we will do that tomorrow.

On day three. The waking up course. Welcome to day seventeen of the Waking Up course. As you get comfortable. In your seat.

You might keep your eyes open. For the beginning of this session. And take a few deep breaths. And just let yourself Settle.

Into the feeling. Of rest in In space. And as you gaze in front of you. Just let your gaze be

As wide as possible. No need to focus On anything in particular. Just stare into space. With soft eyes.

Feeling the breath. Come and go. Listen to the sounds in the room. Horizon. And passing away.

And as you stare into Your visual field. Take a moment. Is looking.

See if you can. Look back. With your attention. This may sound paradoxical.

But See what happens the moment. You look. There was a teacher named Douglas Harding who wrote a book Titled On Having No Head.

And the exercise he recommended. to his students was too Gays. Whatever is before you. And

Look for your own head. Notice That your head It's not one of the things you see. What is it like to

See the world. And simultaneously notice. that your head is not appearing Yeah. See if that does anything to your sense of

Awareness. Harding used to say that Where his head was supposed to be. It was just the world. See if you can be mindful of that.

In each moment. Now gently close your eyes. And Pay attention to this feeling. That you might have that you're now

Inside your head. But your attention is in Something. But again, what you're calling your head The sensations you get from your skin.

The muscles in your face. All of that is appearing in Consciousness. That which is aware is not inside of Something.

Everything is in it. See if you can feel that. Open your eyes again. And Ask yourself what has changed.

World comes rushing in. Uh space just got bigger. You might play with this.

Opening and closing your eyes. Periodically. Is there really a change? There's a change in the contents of consciousness, clearly. There are things you can see with your

Eyes open that you can't. With your eyes closed. But You still have a visual field in both cases. When you close your eyes your visual field doesn't disappear.

All of this changing are the contents of consciousness. And more and more as we Proceed in this practice. We're going to be looking at the first time. To see if the

Feeling that consciousness has a center. That there's a Meditator in the middle. A thinker of thoughts.

He see your A hearer of sounds We'll be looking into that. Had a feeling that

Awareness emanates From a single point inside the head. And in some ways this is even easier to do with eyes open. Because we use Vision.

To define ourselves in opposition to our environment. More than we do with the other senses. There's a clear feeling that most of us have. Most of the time that we are behind our face.

Looking out at the world. Through our eyes. In this moment.

Is true. You might look That you were behind your face. At this moment.

And the moment you notice your Lost in thought. Come back to this exercise. Keep an attention very wide. With her eyes open or closed.

And seen If this feeling of being inside the head Survive scrutiny. Just give up all efforts.

And notice whatever appears. On its own. Well today I introduced A slightly different. Exercise.

And there'll be some more of that. From time to time. Because it's good to use This growing

facility with mindfulness. To Engage kind of structured analysis of experience. You can definitely precipitate.

Certain insights. Bye. Doing something a little more directed. Than just noticing whatever happens. To arise.

And if you're interested, you might get that book I mentioned. On Having No Head by Douglas Harding. Because he in a way that was quite unique. To him.

Developed. analogies and exercises that Can provoke an insight. Into The

Illusoriness. Of subject object. Perception. It's not to say that Consciousness isn't arising in the brain.

Your mind being Co terminus with The rest of The physical world.

What Harding was doing was Showing that this Sense of being inside the head. From the side of experience. Changes.

When you actually look to see If it's true. And As you play with that exercise. You might find that

a very expansive And Centerless. sense of what awareness is.

Can emerge. In place of this feeling. that you would otherwise call I And we'll look into that more tomorrow.

Wanna see you back here for day eighteen. Of the waking up course. Welcome to day thirty one of the Waking Up chorus. Once again.

Sit however you're comfortable. And try to Connect with your experience. All at once. In a flash.

Just feel the body as a cloud of sensation. Don't give any scope. Present.

Notice that however you feel. Whether you're tired. More uncomfortable. Consciousness itself is already vividly aware.

On its own. See if you can relinquish the shape of your body. Notice that you don't feel hands or shoulders. Or feet. It's just a cloud of sensation.

individual points of pressure. Tingling. He Or cold. Vibration.

And the moment you notice That a thought is present. Look for the thinker. Of that thought. Is there anyone that the thought

is occurring too. Or coming from What is thinking? And then rest is the open space in which The thoughts itself

unwinds and disappears. Listen to the sounds in the room. And notice how each one articulates this space of consciousness. Consciousness is simply the space in which Everything is appearing.

On its own. Rest as that. Simply begin again.

But recognize that in practicing in this way you are Expressing An intention. For yourself. an intention to

Be happier. And intention to suffer less. And to be in a better position to help others suffer less.

The goal here is Wisdom. The wisdom that comes from recognizing how things already are. In each moment. And stepping out of the

Fantasy life. born of having a mind that's perpetually distracted. So in this final minute just Remember. What an enormous expression of good will be

For yourself. And for the world this practice is. And I'll see you here tomorrow. For day thirty two. Of the waking up course.

In his apology, Plato attributes the following now famous words to Socrates. The unexamined life is not worth living. Now whether or not that's strictly true. The unexamined life is certainly needlessly painful. Both for oneself and for others.

And painful or not. The unexamined life is certainly less interesting. We really spend our lives learning how to live. And this isn't necessarily as absurd or as tragic as it sounds. Most of us find a pattern of living that makes approximate sense.

And we tinker with it for decades. If you're lucky you'll discover that you can live more or less the way you want. But even if you are lucky. You'll find that it's possible to want the wrong things.

To be lured into squandering your time and attention. To be bewitched in a way. By things that don't really matter. Even if you're lucky. Happiness can be surprisingly elusive.

So why meditate? The basic logic It's quite simple. The quality of your mind determines the quality of your life.

Happiness and suffering, no matter how extreme Are mental events. The mind depends upon the body. Of course. and the body upon the world.

But everything good or bad that happens in your life Must appear in consciousness to matter. This fact offers ample opportunity to make the best of bad situations. Because changing how you respond to the world is often as good as changing the world.

Of course, you can try to change the world. You can try to get everyone around you to behave exactly as you want. You can try to never get sick or injured. You can try to keep your favorite possessions from getting damaged or lost. But try as hard as you might.

The sources of stress and disappointment. An embarrassment. and self doubt. Will always be there. Happily there's another game.

to play. And not everyone knows about it. Rather than trying to change the world in each moment, there's another move open to you. You can look more closely. At what you're doing with your own mind.

and actually cease to respond to life. In ways that produce needless suffering for yourself and those around you. When we're lost in thought There are certain things we tend not to notice about the nature of our minds. For instance

Every thought or feeling you've ever had Good or bad. has arisen and then passed away. The anger you felt yesterday? Or a year ago.

Isn't here anymore. And if it arises in the next moment. Based on your thinking about the past. It will once again pass away when you are no longer thinking about it. This is a profoundly important truth about the mind.

And it can be absolutely liberating to understand it deeply. If you do understand it deeply. That is, if you're able to pay clear attention to the arising of an emotion like anger. Rather than merely think about why you have every right to be angry.

It actually becomes impossible to stay angry for more than a few moments at a time. If you think you can stay angry for a day, Or even an hour. Without continually manufacturing this emotion, By thinking without knowing that you're thinking?

You are mistaken. This is an objective claim about the mechanics of your own subjectivity. And I invite you to test it. And meditation is the tool you would use to test it. Now I can't promise that meditation will keep you from ever becoming angry again.

You can learn not to stay angry. Or fearful. Or embarrassed. Et cetera. For very long.

And when talking about the consequences of negative emotions in the real world? And in your life? The difference between moments and hours is Or days and weeks? is impossible to exaggerate.

Now this is not to say that external circumstances don't matter. But it is your mind. Rather than the circumstances themselves. That determines the quality of your life. Some people are content in the midst of real deprivation and danger.

While others are miserable despite having all the luck in the world. And there are practices that allow us to break this habit of being lost in thought. And to simply become aware of our experience in the present moment. And the main one that I'm teaching in this course is a technique known as Vapasana.

Which is generally translated as insight meditation. And this comes from the oldest tradition of Buddhism known as the Theravada. The quality of mind cultivated in Vapasana practice is is almost always referred to as mindfulness. There's nothing spooky about mindfulness.

It's simply a state of clear Non judgmental and undistracted attention. to the contents of consciousness. Whether pleasant or unpleasant. This practice has been shown to produce long lasting changes in attention, emotion, cognition, and pain perception.

And these correlate with both structural and functional changes in the brain. Mindfulness is now very much in vogue, of course. But it seems to me that there's still many misconceptions about it. It's often taught and marketed as though it were merely an improved version of an executive stress ball. Where it is really more like the large hadron collider.

That is, it's a method for making profound discoveries. In this case about the nature of our own minds. And there's nothing passive. About mindfulness. You could even say that it expresses a certain kind of passion.

A passion for discerning what is subjectively real in each moment. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience. It is the act of experiencing more clearly. Including the arising of thoughts themselves. One of the great strengths of this technique of meditation.

From a secular point of view. is that it doesn't require us to adopt any cultural affectations or unjustified beliefs. It simply demands that we pay close attention to to the flow of our experience. In each moment.

So as you progress through this course. Notice That what you're being asked to do. More and more. is to simply recognize what is already

Arising in consciousness in each moment. Without modifying it. Without grasping at what's pleasant or pushing what's unpleasant away. In some basic sense. Meditation is the act of doing less than

than you normally do. It's the act of being less distracted. In the midst. Of everything. That is already happening.

On its own. And once one is less distracted. One finally has a tool with which to notice truths about one's mind. that otherwise would never be discovered directly.

Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.