Sam Harris Rejects Goal Achievement as Path to Human Fulfillment

萨姆·哈里斯：达成目标并非人生圆满之道 冥想通过破除“自我”的幻觉带来当下的圆满，使个体无论外部境遇如何，都能打破情绪反应的自动化循环。 萨姆·哈里斯（Dr. Sam Harris）博士深入探讨了意识在神经科学与静修层面的本质，指出传统观念中中心化的“自我”感纯属幻觉。他对比了二元冥想与非二元觉悟，阐释了认清觉知“无中心”的本质如何打破无休止的心智杂音与情绪反应循环。对话还涉及正念如何让人们无需依赖迷幻药等化学改变状态，即可体验当下的心流与沉着平静。哈里斯最终解释道，冥想逆转了获得圆满的因果机制，使个体无论身处何种外部境遇或是否达成目标，都能体会到底层的内心平和。 位于双眼后方注视世界的中心化“自我感”本质上是一种幻觉；冥想的核心价值在于发现并不存在独立的思考者，从而根本性改变我们体验意识的方式。 (0:21) 人类大脑在进化机制上旨在追求生存与繁衍而非幸福，因此缺乏原生的“关闭开关”，使人长期处于持续不断的内心自言自语与杂念之中。 (8:37) 正念并非强行压制思绪，而是以不加评判的态度观察在意识中自然浮现的念头，从而打破对脑内叙事的自动认同。 (13:26) 冥想彻底逆转了依赖外在成就来获取快乐的因果逻辑，使人无需等待下一件好事发生，就能在当下直接体验到内在的充实与平静。 (35:19)

Dr. Sam Harris argues that the conventional feeling of a centralized internal self is an evolutionary illusion maintained by unrecognized thoughts, and that meditation trains the mind to recognize centerless awareness and attain baseline fulfillment independent of external circumstances. The Illusion of the Internal Observer (0:00) Harris explains that while people commonly feel like a centralized subject or passenger located "behind the eyes," neurobiology has identified no specific brain region responsible for self-awareness. He describes this internal self not merely as a mental construct, but as a proper illusion arising when individuals fail to recognize that they are actively thinking. Most novice meditators begin with a dualistic framework—an observer aiming attention at an object such as the breath. However, Harris asserts that searching directly for the thinker of thoughts reveals that no such entity exists. This realization transitions practice toward non-dual awareness, mirroring spontaneous flow states in sports or art where the perceived separation between observer and experience vanishes. Harris likens recognizing the true nature of consciousness to viewing a bistable optical illusion: once an individual perceives that the dualistic subject-object divide was never actually present, the shift in perspective becomes permanently accessible. Evolutionary Wiring and Compulsive Mental Chatter (8:37) Human cognitive hardware evolved to support basic survival and reproduction rather than happiness or self-actualization, leaving humans without an evolved "off-switch" for internal monologue and imagery. Harris defines the subjective feeling of self as what it feels like to think without realizing that thinking is occurring. Unexamined thoughts possess disproportionate psychological leverage; an unrecognized passing thought of self-hatred can dictate an entire mood and identity simply because its arrival goes unnoticed. To illustrate the pervasive lack of voluntary mental control, Harris notes that virtually no untrained person can focus on a simple object for 30 seconds without being hijacked by internal narrative. On silent retreats, meditators often feel increasingly distracted as their practice deepens. Harris explains that this reflects a heightened perceptual "frame rate" that reveals the mind's baseline hyperactivity rather than a genuine decline in focus. Mindfulness does not forcibly suppress this chatter, but observes thoughts as spontaneous appearances, breaking automatic identification with them. Progression Toward Equanimity and Centerless Awareness (24:39) Harris outlines two primary step functions in meditation practice. The first occurs when a person clearly distinguishes between being lost in thought and being aware of the present moment. This recognition disrupts automatic physiological stress responses, such as prolonged anger during rumination, granting immediate psychological relief and the freedom to disengage from negative loops. The second step function occurs when dualistic effort dissolves into centerless awareness, recognizing that no central observer directs attention. Within this framework, the self is understood as an ongoing process—"selfing"—rather than a static entity. Individuals naturally navigate shifting "states of self," such as adopting the role of a customer or parent, without requiring a permanent ego center. Citing a Tibetan Buddhist analogy where "thoughts are like thieves entering an empty house," Harris defines equanimity as cultivating a "sky-like mind" that neither grasps nor resists experience. Relinquishing the defensive ego creates psychological invulnerability, allowing negative emotions to function as brief salience cues during emergencies without lingering afterward. Reversing Causality for Present-Moment Fulfillment (35:19) While external pursuits like fitness, career achievements, and relationships provide relative stability, Harris emphasizes that they cannot guarantee psychological peace, as individuals can remain miserable despite outward success. Moments of goal achievement carry an extremely short half-life before being replaced by new horizons of desire. Although substances like psychedelics can serve as an initial catalyst by demonstrating states of profound well-being, Harris cautions that drug experiences are impermanent, making contemplative practice essential for integrating these insights into everyday waking life. Meditation fundamentally reverses the causal relationship between circumstances and fulfillment. Rather than continuously arranging life's external props in the hope of eventually silencing internal turmoil, direct contemplative awareness allows individuals to experience fulfillment prior to external outcomes. This internal stability enables active engagement with life's responsibilities from an unconditional baseline of peace rather than remaining hostage to changing circumstances. Harris concludes that contemplative practice does not promote passivity or undermine practical rationality, but resolves the exhausting habit of deferring peace to a shifting future. By recognizing that consciousness is centerless and that thoughts are insubstantial, individuals can access an immediate point of rest amid ordinary life and struggle.

Dr. Sam Harris在与Andrew Huberman的对话中指出，人类主观体验中独立且恒常的“自我”本质上是一种认知错觉；冥想的根本目的并非仅限于缓解压力等修补性效益，而是通过看破无意识思维的劫持，体认主客合一的非二元意识，从而扭转将心理满足寄托于外部条件的被动因果关系。 自我感的错觉本质与非二元意识 (0:00) Harris解释称，神经生物学迄今未在大脑中定位出负责自我意识的单一脑区。大多数未受训练的人习惯于将自我视为隐藏在面孔后方、审视外部世界的独立“主体”，并在初涉冥想时建立“观察者对视客体（如呼吸或声音）”的二元对立。然而，这种主观中心感本质上是一个彻底的错觉（proper illusion）。虽然大众文化聚焦于冥想降低压力、提升专注或延缓皮层变薄等 remedial 功效，但深度冥想揭示出意识本身并不存在一个“思维背后的思考者”；消除主客观的对立感后，个体会发现自己并非岸边观察意识之流的旁观者，而是意识之流本身。 这种主客消融的体验类似于体育、艺术或性高潮中仅占人生万分之一（1/100 of 1%）的自发“心流”（flow），但冥想提供了稳定主动通达该状态的认知路径。Harris运用“双稳态知觉”（如花瓶与双人脸轮廓的光学错觉）类比指出，一旦个体看破了主体与客体之间的二元对立，这种对觉知本性的认知便如同识别出错觉图景一样无法被“取消认知”（cannot unsee），从而确立起全新的觉知视角。 演化杂音与专注力的三十秒考验 (8:37) 从演化生物学视角来看，人类大脑硬件的塑造是为了基本的生存和繁衍，而非最大化幸福感或自我实现。演化促成复杂的语言交流，却从未赋予人类关闭内部语言与自我对话的“关闭开关”（off-switch），因为持续的心智处理在生存层面极具效用。Harris将主观的“自我”定义为“处于思维中却不自知自身正在思维的体验”（what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking）。未被直接检视的内心白噪音使单个闪现的负面念头（例如自我厌恶）轻易主宰一个人的全部情绪和身份认同。 为印证思维劫持的普遍性，Harris提出一项测试：若要求未经训练者注视桌面时钟或自己的双手等简单物体30秒且不陷入念头，几乎无人能够达成，甚至许多人因深陷念头而误以为自己成功。在长达12小时静坐与慢速行禅交替的密集禅修中，练习者初期常误以为自己随时间推移变得更加分心（如从保持专注五分钟降至五秒）；Harris指出，这实际上是注意力解剖感知“经验原子”（atoms of experience）所带来的“感知帧率”（frame rate）提升，暴露了心智固有的涣散本质，而正念正是对意识呈现内容保持不加评判的清晰觉知。 冥想的阶跃进阶与去自我化的坚韧 (18:37) 针对Huberman关于冥想进展轨迹的提问，Harris归纳了修行中的两个关键“阶跃函数”（step functions）：第一阶段是识别出“迷失在思维中”与“觉察当下”之间的间隙，仅凭意识到“我正在思考”便能立即切断沉溺思虑对负面情绪生理反应（如愤怒引发的压力生理级联）的持续供给；第二阶段则是实现非二元觉知，认识到并不存在掌控专注聚光灯的中心主体，觉知是无中心且敞开的（centerless awareness）。 Harris援引藏传佛教的比喻称，“念头犹如盗贼潜入空宅”，当心智之宅本自空寂，便无物可窃。他强调，放弃自我假象并不削弱理性或敏锐度，相反，“自我”并非固态名词而是一种动态进程（“selfing”而不是固定实体），个体会根据情境自发切换为顾客、学生、父母或配偶等“自我状态”。消除刚性的自我概念带来的是一种源自“被蒸发”（being evaporated）的深度心理无脆弱性——没有任何自我需要被防卫、被冒犯或计较得失；面对危机时，情绪虽作为显著性线索触发，但保持平静远比事后长时间沉浸在愤怒中更具应对效益。 迷幻催化的局限与日常意识整合 (27:23) 关于非常态意识状态，Harris回顾了自己18岁时使用MDMA的经历，肯定其不可替代的启蒙价值——它首次向他证明了对心智进行第一人称探索的必要性，将“冥想”从抽象词汇转化为切身体验，并证实无条件的爱与极致的心理健康是可能的。 然而，Harris强调了药物体验的核心局限：化学效应必然消退，最终只留下模糊如梦的记忆，并容易诱使个体陷入追逐短暂“巅峰体验”（peak experiences）的循环。Harris在发现冥想后停止使用迷幻剂长达25年，他指出人类真正寻求的是能够与日常生活完全兼容的持久自由；任何偶发迷幻体验所带来的洞见，最终都必须能映射并扎根于普通清醒意识中，即在不依赖外源化学状态的前提下直接识破自我错觉。 破除追逐幻象与反转因果的当下圆满 (33:16) 在探讨人生目标与幸福感时，Harris指出追求达成目标的模式具有“海市蜃楼”的特质：目标的达成时刻具有极短的半衰期，随即被下一组目标取代。人们往往耗费一生在后悔过去与担忧未来之间摇摆，浮皮潦草地“在当下之上跳舞”（dancing over the present）而从未与当下产生真实联结。尽管健身、睡眠优化、财富、事业与家庭等“相对幸福”具备现实价值，但无数人在坐拥一切成就时依然极度痛苦，因为他们误以为必须将所有外部生活道具布置妥当且无危机发生，内心交战才能停息。 Harris认为，冥想的根本突破在于“反转因果关系”（reversing causality）：它打破了依赖外部环境改善来换取内在良好状态的被动循环，使个体得以直接调节意识本身，在任何事件发生之前便安住于圆满之中。这种内在自由并非消极避世，而是让个体在面对顺境或逆境时，拥有一个能够穿透永无止境的“寻找幸福工程”并安然停驻的基准支点。 该对话系统阐明了以非二元冥想瓦解自我错觉的内在逻辑，指出摆脱思维认同能直接赋予个体超越外部情境的心理自主；但关于个体如何在实践中平衡现实目标的进取心与对当下的无条件接纳，以及非二元顿悟在不同认知基准人群中的普适性与神经机制差异，讨论主要依托第一人称现象学与哲学术语剖析，未展开定量的实证科学论述。

[8:37] Sam Harris: what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking. [18:37] Sam Harris: thoughts are like thieves entering an empty house. [24:39] Sam Harris: The minute spent lost in thought about what's making you angry is the thing that dragged through the physiology of anger... mindfulness even dualistic mindfulness gives you this capacity to just observe the mechanics of this and then get off the ride whenever you want. [35:19] Sam Harris: What meditation does... it reverses the causality and lets you actually change state such that you can be fulfilled before anything happens.

[0:00] Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, [0:01] [music] where we revisit past episodes [0:04] for the most potent and actionable [0:06] science-based [music] tools for mental [0:08] health, physical health, and [0:09] performance. [0:11] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor [0:13] of neurobiology and opthalmology at [0:16] Stamford School of Medicine. And now for [0:18] my discussion with Dr. Sam Harris. Dr. [0:21] Sam Harris, what is this thing that we [0:23] call a self? You know, as far as I know, [0:26] we have not localized the region in the [0:28] brain that can entirely account for our [0:31] awareness of self. [0:33] >> The problem is we we use the term self [0:35] in so many different ways, right? And [0:37] and there's there's one sense of that [0:40] term which um is the target of [0:43] meditation and you'll hear it from me [0:44] that this self is an illusion, right? [0:47] And and that there's a there's a [0:49] psychological freedom that can be [0:51] experienced on the other side of [0:52] discovering it to be an illusion. And [0:54] some people don't like that framing. [0:55] Some people would would insist that it's [0:57] not so much an illusion, but it's a it's [0:59] a construct and it's not what it seems. [1:01] The thing that doesn't exist, uh it [1:04] certainly doesn't exist as it seems. And [1:05] I would I would want to argue that it [1:07] actually is just a proper illusion is [1:09] this the sense that there is a subject [1:12] interior to experience in addition to [1:15] experience. So most people feel like [1:18] they're having an experience of the [1:19] world and they're having their an [1:21] experience of their bodies in the world. [1:23] And in addition to that, they feel that [1:26] they are a subject internal to the body. [1:29] Most people feel like they're behind [1:31] their face as a kind of locus of [1:33] awareness and thought and intention. [1:36] It's almost like they're you're a [1:37] passenger inside your body. Most people [1:39] don't feel identical to their [1:40] experience. They feel like they're on [1:42] the edge of experience, somehow [1:44] appropriating it from the side. You're [1:46] kind of on the edge of the world and the [1:49] world is out there. your body is is in [1:52] some sense an object in the world uh [1:54] which you you know it's different from [1:56] the world you know the the boundary of [1:58] your skin is still meaningful you can [1:59] sort of you loosely control your body I [2:02] mean you can't control you can control [2:04] your gross and subtle you know voluntary [2:06] motor movements but you're not [2:07] controlling everything your body is [2:09] doing you're not controlling your [2:10] heartbeat and your hormonal secretions [2:12] and all of that and so there's a lot [2:13] that's going on that is in the dark for [2:15] you then you give someone an instruction [2:18] to meditate A and you say, "Okay, let's [2:20] let's examine all of this from the first [2:22] person's side. Let's look for this thing [2:23] you're calling I." They're going to [2:25] close their eyes, very likely, and now [2:27] they're going to pay attention to [2:28] something. They're going to pay [2:29] attention to the breath or the sounds. [2:32] And it's from the point of view of being [2:34] a locus of attention that is now aiming [2:37] attention strategically at an object [2:39] like the breath that there's this [2:40] dualism that is set up. and the ultimate [2:43] promise of meditation. I mean, there [2:45] really two levels at which you could be [2:47] interested in in meditation. Um, one is, [2:52] you know, very straightforward and [2:53] remedial and non-p paradoxical and very [2:56] well subscribed and it's it's the usual [2:58] set of claims about all the benefits [3:00] you're going to get from meditation, [3:01] right? So you're going to lower your [3:02] stress and you're going to increase your [3:04] focus and you're going to, you know, [3:06] stave off cortical thinning and there's [3:08] all kinds of good things that science is [3:09] saying meditation will will give you. [3:12] But from my point of view, the real [3:14] purpose of meditation and its real [3:15] promise is not in this long list of of [3:19] benefits and you know I'm not [3:20] discounting any of those though you know [3:22] the science for many of them is quite [3:24] provisional. It's in this deeper claim [3:27] that if you look for this thing you're [3:29] calling eye, if you look for the sense [3:30] that that there's a thinker in addition [3:33] to the the the mere arising of the next [3:36] thought, say, you won't find that thing [3:39] and you cannot find it in a way that's [3:42] conclusive. Uh and that matters, right? [3:45] and and it and it has a there's a host [3:47] of benefits that follow from that [3:49] discovery which are quite a bit deeper [3:51] and more interesting than engaging [3:53] meditation on the side of its benefits. [3:55] You know, de-stressing, increasing focus [3:57] and all the rest. Many people think [3:59] meditation is about changing the [4:01] contents of consciousness. You there's [4:02] some some contents you want to get rid [4:04] of like anxiety. Other contents you want [4:07] to to encourage like calm and you know [4:10] unconditional love or you some other you [4:11] know classically pleasant pro-social [4:13] emotion. Um, and that's all fine. That's [4:16] all possible. But the real, you know, [4:20] wisdom of, you know, the the 2,000-y old [4:23] wisdom of meditation that really is the, [4:25] you know, the the chewy center of the [4:26] the Tootsie Pop is a recognition of what [4:30] consciousness itself is always already [4:33] like, regardless of the contents and the [4:35] changes in contents. And classic flow [4:38] experiences have this this quality where [4:40] there's the and this this tends to be [4:42] why they're so rewarding. um where [4:44] there's just if you're in in some you [4:47] know athletic activity or you know an [4:49] aesthetic one or you could be having sex [4:51] or you could be whatever it is some peak [4:53] experience. Its peakness usually entails [4:58] there being some brief period where [5:01] there was no distance between you and [5:03] the experience. Right? for that moment. [5:05] You were no longer looking over your own [5:07] shoulder or anticipating the next moment [5:10] or trying to get somewhere where where [5:12] you weren't or, you know, micromanaging [5:15] errors or you like this, you know, [5:17] there's not there's just the flow of [5:19] unity with whatever the, you know, [5:22] whatever the experience is, you know, a [5:24] surfer on on the wave, right? And we [5:26] love those experiences. We are [5:29] continually abstracted away from them by [5:32] our thinking about them. We're think, [5:34] "Oh my god, that that was so good." Or, [5:35] "How do I get back to that?" Or, you [5:37] know, you're looking at a sunset, it's [5:38] the most beautiful sunset you've ever [5:39] seen, and then you're continually [5:43] interrupting the experience of merely [5:45] seeing it with a commentary about how [5:48] amazing this is. And I wonder, you know, [5:50] what are real estate prices here? I [5:52] mean, is it possible that we could we [5:53] could move here? And like you your your [5:55] mind is just continually narrating a a [5:58] conversation you're having with [5:59] yourself. However, paradoxically, I [6:01] mean, you're telling yourself things [6:03] yourself things that you already know uh [6:06] as though there were two of you rather [6:08] often, right? Like, you know, you're [6:09] just, you know, I'm looking for, you [6:12] know, which which is the water. And I [6:13] say, oh, there it is, right? But like [6:14] I'm the one seeing it. Who am I saying, [6:18] oh, you know, there it is, too? So, [6:19] there's someone else who needs to be [6:21] informed about the thing I already saw. [6:24] Right? So, it's it's um there's [6:26] something about our internal dialogue [6:27] that is paradoxical. And that's what [6:30] ultimately meditation is. I mean this [6:32] kind of meditation you you ultimately [6:35] learn to recognize that there's no [6:38] separation from you between you and your [6:41] experience, right? There's not the [6:42] experience on the one hand and the self [6:45] on the other. There's just experience. [6:48] It's not that you're on the riverbank. [6:51] Uh and this is this is how it can seem [6:52] in the beginning. Even when you're [6:54] practicing meditation fairly diligently, [6:56] it can seem like you're on the riverbank [6:58] watching the contents of consciousness [7:00] flow by. And then and meditation is the [7:03] act of doing that more and more [7:06] dispassionately. So you're no longer [7:07] grabbing at the at the pleasant or [7:09] pushing the unpleasant away. You're just [7:10] kind of relaxing and in in the most [7:13] non-judgmental frame of mind, just [7:16] witnessing the flow. Right? But if [7:20] you're doing that dualistically, [7:22] you feel like the meditator. You feel [7:24] like the subject aiming attention. And [7:26] so now you're on the riverbank watching [7:28] everything go past. But the truth is [7:32] you are the river. There's a process by [7:34] which you would eventually recognize [7:37] that there's no distance between you and [7:40] your experience. And again, you can you [7:42] can wait for those moments in life where [7:44] experience gets so good or so [7:46] terrifying, you know, or just so [7:48] salient, right? Your amygdala is driving [7:51] so hard. I mean, so you're in in a war [7:53] and you can't think about anything [7:55] because, you know, the enem is shooting [7:56] at you and this is the most thrilling [7:58] video game you've ever played in your [7:59] life. uh and your life is on the line or [8:02] you're you're you know at the peak of of [8:04] some you know athletic event where [8:07] there's just you don't know how you're [8:09] doing the things you're doing but it's [8:11] all happening automatically right but [8:13] those are 1/100th of 1% of one's life [8:16] and what I'm calling meditation is a way [8:19] of simply [8:21] understanding the mechanics of attention [8:23] whereby you are denying yourself that [8:26] unity of experience so much of the time [8:29] and recognizing that that's, you know, [8:31] it's based on a a misperception of of [8:34] the way consciousness always already is. [8:37] >> Something about our developmental wiring [8:39] and the algorithms that these neural [8:42] circuits run tend to bias most people, [8:44] the non practice meditators to live a [8:49] somewhat functional life at least um [8:54] without this awareness of actor and [8:56] observer, [8:57] >> right? And so what you're really talking [8:59] about is an a deliberate intervention to [9:03] understand and resolve that gap in the [9:06] algorithm. So what are your thoughts [9:08] about the organization of the circuitry [9:10] to to essentially under normal [9:12] conditions to not reveal its what seems [9:15] to be one of its more important and [9:17] profound and um for you know dare I say [9:20] enlightening features. Right? It's [9:23] almost as if that we have to intervene [9:25] in the self in order to reveal the self. [9:27] We are not set up by evolution to be as [9:30] happy as we possibly can be and to do [9:34] almost anything that interests us. Well, [9:36] I mean, we're not set up by evolution to [9:38] be mathematicians or musicians or to to [9:42] create democracies that are healthy. We [9:45] are doing these things based on [9:47] cognitive and emotional hardware [9:50] uh that we are leveraging in new [9:53] directions, right? Right? I mean, we [9:54] have we are primates and we are, you [9:57] know, we're communicating with, you [9:58] know, small mouth noises. I mean, we're [9:59] language using primates and all of that [10:01] is clearly evolved and we're doing these [10:03] amazing things, including science, you [10:05] know, however improbably where you we're [10:07] actually able to to, you know, almost [10:10] entirely with language uh understand [10:15] reality that at at a scale that exceeds [10:18] us in both directions. I mean the very [10:20] the very vast and the very small and and [10:22] you know also temporally the very old. [10:23] It's amazing that we can do all of those [10:25] things but evolution is blind to all of [10:28] that. We have flown the perch that was [10:30] created for us by evolution. I mean [10:31] we're just not it's not just the primate [10:34] things. So, so it is with learning how [10:36] to regulate our emotions and and you [10:39] know punch through to a self-concept or [10:42] beyond a self-concept that is more [10:44] normative psychologically that allows us [10:46] to you know not be um terrorized by our [10:50] apish genes. Evolution never thought to [10:53] build us an off switch for this, right? [10:55] I mean the language is so useful and it [10:58] gets tuned up so strongly for us. Uh and [11:01] there was never a reason to shut it off, [11:03] right? There's never reason to give you [11:04] this ability to say I wouldn't it be [11:06] nice to have 4 hours of quiet now like [11:08] no selft talk for most of us um we are [11:12] covertly talking basically all the time [11:16] and and there's an imagistic component [11:18] of of this for many people you're [11:20] visualizing things as well but there's [11:22] just a lot a ton of white noise in the [11:25] mind that feels a certain way and you [11:30] know what I what you discover in [11:31] meditation ultimately is that [11:35] the self is what it feels like to be [11:38] thinking without knowing that you're [11:39] thinking. So like you and I are talking [11:41] now you're you know people are listening [11:42] to us they're struggling to follow the [11:44] train of this conversation because it is [11:46] competing with their the conversation [11:48] that's happening in their heads. So [11:50] it's, you know, the the first discovery [11:51] people make in meditation is that it's [11:53] just so hard to pay attention to [11:55] anything, the breath or a mantra or [11:57] sound, whatever it is, because [12:00] you're thinking every you're thinking [12:03] about the thing you need to do in an [12:04] hour and oh, it's so good that I I [12:06] downloaded this app. I'm like, this is [12:07] really good. This is going to be good [12:08] for me. But and you're but you're that [12:10] that chatter isn't showing up. you [12:13] you're not far back enough uh in the in [12:17] the kind of the theater of consciousness [12:19] so as to see it emerge. It's it is just [12:21] sneaking up behind you and it feels like [12:24] me again. It feels like when someone is [12:26] thinking the thought, well, what the [12:29] hell does that mean? Right? They're not [12:31] seeing it as an emerging object in [12:34] consciousness. It just feels like me. It [12:36] just feels that that that's it is it the [12:39] the you know subjectively it's like the [12:42] mind contracts around this appearance in [12:46] consciousness and it really is just it [12:47] is just a you know it's just a sound [12:49] with the voice of the mind if you [12:51] actually can inspect it. It is it is [12:54] deeply inscrable that we ever feel [12:57] identified with our thoughts. I mean how [12:58] is it that we could be a thought? these [13:01] thoughts, a thought just arises and [13:02] passes away. And when you inspect it, [13:04] when you go to inspect it, it's it, you [13:08] know, it unravels. It's it's just it's [13:12] it's the least substantial possible [13:14] thing. And and it could but yet it could [13:16] be a thought of self-hatred. You know, [13:19] it could be a a thought that that [13:21] unrecognized [13:23] totally defines your your mood. If you [13:26] could elaborate a bit on this notion of [13:28] internal chatter and external stimuli [13:31] >> is just the recognition that there's a [13:33] dialogue ongoing internally is that [13:36] itself valuable? [13:37] >> Yeah. I mean, so here here's a claim I [13:39] would make that some people might find [13:42] surprising, but I I think uh this is an [13:45] objectively true claim about the [13:48] subjectivity of most people, which is [13:50] that unless you, you know, have a fair [13:52] amount of training, unless you just [13:53] happen to be some kind of savant in this [13:55] area, which, you know, most people by [13:57] definition aren't, I believe this is a a [14:00] true claim that, you know, if we just, [14:01] you put a, you know, a stopwatch on this [14:03] table and and, you know, people could [14:06] just watch, you know, 30 seconds elapse [14:08] And I set, you know, I set all of our [14:10] listeners or your viewers the task. Uh, [14:14] for the next 30 seconds, just pay [14:16] attention to anything, your breath, you [14:18] know, or, you know, this the sight of [14:21] your hand or the sight of the clock or [14:23] uh any object without getting lost in [14:26] thought, without getting momentarily [14:28] distracted by this conversation you're [14:31] having with yourself. A couple things [14:32] would happen. One is no one would be [14:35] able to do it. This is not just a [14:37] superficial inability. I mean, if your [14:39] life depended on it, you wouldn't be [14:41] able to do it. I mean, if if the fate of [14:43] civilization depended on it, none of [14:45] none of our listeners would be able to [14:47] do this. Um, and yet some percentage of [14:50] them are are so distracted by thought [14:54] that they would think that they will [14:56] actually try this experiment and think [14:58] they succeeded. Right? And for these [14:59] people, what what happens is you put [15:00] them on a meditation retreat and you [15:03] have them spend 12 hours a day in [15:05] silence doing nothing but this. Right? [15:06] So the practice is just pay attention to [15:09] the breath when they're sitting and then [15:10] eventually you know you incorporate [15:12] everything sounds and other sensations. [15:14] And then you interle that with walking [15:16] meditation where they're paying [15:16] attention just to the sensations of [15:18] lifting and moving and placing their [15:20] feet. And then you know once the [15:22] practice is going you you incorporate [15:23] sounds and sights and everything but so [15:25] you can pay attention to everything but [15:26] the goal is for every moment [15:30] um you are going to you're going to [15:33] cultivate the what this this faculty of [15:34] mind which you know increasingly is [15:36] known as mindfulness right so and [15:38] mindfulness is nothing other than this [15:41] very careful attention to the contents [15:43] of consciousness. Uh but the crucial [15:46] piece is it is not [15:49] a moment of being lost in thought, [15:51] right? You're not you you're not [15:53] blocking thoughts. Thoughts themselves [15:54] can arise, but in those moments of being [15:56] truly mindful, you're noticing thoughts [15:59] as thoughts. Whether they're whether [16:00] it's language in the mind or images, [16:03] you're noticing those two as spontaneous [16:05] appearances in consciousness. Most [16:07] people, you know, certainly anyone who [16:09] thinks they can pay attention to [16:10] something for 30 seconds without being [16:11] lost in thought. You put those people on [16:14] a meditation retreat, what they're going [16:16] to experience is, you know, on the first [16:18] day, they're going to feel like, oh [16:20] yeah, I was, you know, I was with the [16:21] breath or I was walk, you know, I was [16:23] with the sensations of walking and I'd [16:25] be there for like five minutes, you [16:26] know, solid and then I would get lost in [16:28] thought, then I come back and, you know, [16:30] five more minutes I'd be lost in thought [16:31] and get back. But as the days [16:34] progressed, you know, even, you know, 10 [16:35] days into a silent meditation retreat, [16:38] they're going to experience [16:40] more and more distraction. They're gonna [16:42] it's going to seem like, okay, wait a [16:44] minute. Now I can't pay attention to [16:46] anything for more than five seconds, [16:48] right? Because what they're discovering [16:50] is just how distractable they are. If [16:53] you train your attention in this way to [16:56] notice the particularities of of sensory [16:59] experience and emotional experience, [17:01] like you're looking for the atoms of [17:03] experience, you know, um you get better [17:06] and better at that and certain things [17:10] happen. But one thing that you one thing [17:12] that I really do do think happens is [17:15] there's a kind of frame rate change in [17:18] in the the data stream where you really [17:20] are just you're just noticing much much [17:22] more. This whole dance of I'm lost in [17:27] thought now I'm now I'm strategically [17:29] directing my attention again. All of [17:32] this seems to ramify this sense of self, [17:34] the sense of of there there's one to be [17:36] doing this. There's there's somebody [17:38] holding the spotlight of attention and [17:40] getting better at coming back to the [17:43] object of meditation. But the thing I [17:45] like to do when I talk about all of this [17:48] is undercut the false assumptions that [17:51] are anchoring all of that as early as [17:53] possible. Because where where I think [17:55] you want to be is recognizing that there [18:00] is no place from which to aim attention. [18:02] Right? This whole dualistic setup of [18:04] subject and object is the thing that is [18:07] already not there. And it's not that you [18:09] it's not that it's there and you [18:10] meditate it out of existence [18:12] successfully. It's really not there. And [18:14] if you if you learn how to look for it, [18:17] you can see that it's not there and feel [18:19] that it's not there and it no longer [18:21] seems to be there. Right? Right. It's [18:22] like it's it's not and it becomes like [18:24] again like a bstable percept where you [18:27] looked at it long enough and you thought [18:28] okay now I see the vase and the face and [18:31] um I can't unsee it and every time I [18:35] look it's it's there again. If we were [18:37] to kind of break it down meditation into [18:40] some basic component parts, what are the [18:42] component parts? And where I'm really [18:44] going with this is why would those [18:46] component parts eventually allow for the [18:48] realization that there is no um [18:50] distinction between uh actor and [18:52] observer and so on. [18:54] >> Ultimately, meditation [18:56] is not a practice that you're adding to [19:00] your life. It's not it's not a doing [19:01] more of anything. It's actually ceasing [19:03] to do something. It's ultimately [19:06] non-distraction. I mean, it's ultimately [19:08] you're recognizing what consciousness is [19:10] like when you're no longer distracted by [19:13] the the automatic arising of of thought. [19:16] It's not that thoughts don't arise. It's [19:17] not that you can't use them. It's not [19:18] that you've become irrational or or um [19:22] uh you know, unintelligent. I mean, like [19:24] all of that you you still have all of [19:26] your tools, but everything is in plain [19:28] view. I mean there's an analogy in in [19:29] Tibetan Buddhism which I love which is [19:31] um thoughts are like thieves entering an [19:34] empty house. You know there's nothing [19:36] for them to steal, right? So you know in [19:38] in the usual case thoughts are there [19:40] really is something in jeopardy. Every [19:42] time a thought comes I'm not meditating [19:44] anymore and and not only that I feel [19:46] terrible because of what I'm thinking [19:48] about most of the time. Right? So it's [19:50] totally understandable that thoughts [19:52] seem like a problem in the beginning and [19:54] for certain types of meditation they are [19:56] explicitly thought of as a problem [19:58] because you're trying to focus on one [20:00] thing to the exclusion of everything [20:02] else including thought and that's a [20:04] training that can be good to do. It [20:05] becomes a tool that you can use for [20:07] other kinds of of of insight but it's a [20:10] very specific and kind of brittle skill [20:14] in the end. I mean it's it is it's a [20:15] skill just like I'm going to pay [20:16] attention to one thing and I'm going to [20:18] do that so well that everything else is [20:20] going to fade out meditatively. If you [20:22] have a laser focus on any one thing [20:25] whether it's the breath or whatever it [20:26] is you can lose all sense of everything. [20:29] I mean you can lose all sense of hearing [20:30] and your physical body can disappear. I [20:32] mean like literally it can become [20:33] incredibly subtle and vast and [20:36] drug-like. Um, and many people approach [20:41] meditation thinking kind of climbing the [20:44] ladder of those changes into subtlety [20:46] and vastness. That's the whole that's [20:48] the whole game, right? And it can be a [20:51] deeply rewarding game to play. And it [20:54] also does come with all kinds of [20:56] ancillary benefits. I mean, all the [20:57] focus and the calm and the and the the [20:59] kind of smoothness of emotional states. [21:02] I mean, all of that comes with greater [21:03] concentration and it it can be quite [21:05] wonderful. But again at best that's a [21:08] tool to aim in the direction that I'm [21:10] talking about now with with respect to [21:12] meditation which relates to more what I [21:15] would call you know mindfulness [21:17] generically and ultimately kind of [21:19] non-dual mindfulness the underlying goal [21:22] is to be more and more aquamous with [21:25] changes. So not to grasp at what's [21:27] pleasant or interesting and not to push [21:29] what's unpleasant or or you know boring [21:33] or or you know otherwise non-engaging a [21:35] way. Um what you want is just a kind of [21:39] a skylike mind that just allows [21:42] everything to appear and you're not [21:43] clinging to anything or or or reacting [21:46] to anything. This applies not just to [21:48] something like mindfulness but even to [21:50] something like the self, right? So the [21:52] sense of self is also a process. I mean, [21:56] it's it's a verb. It's not. So, we're [21:58] we're selfing more than we are selves, [22:01] right? And even appropriate uses of of [22:04] of the term self that don't go away even [22:07] when you when you recognize that the [22:10] this the core subject self is an [22:12] illusion. There there are states of [22:14] self, right, where you you can recognize [22:17] in your life that you inhabit very [22:20] different modes of of being depending on [22:23] the context. So like there are moments [22:25] where you just by walking into a certain [22:27] building you suddenly transition into a [22:30] different state of self like like [22:32] suddenly you pass through a door and now [22:34] you're a customer in a store right so we [22:37] know what that customer feeling is like [22:39] you're now the person who's getting the [22:41] attention. It's a very kind of [22:42] formalized type of attention from the [22:44] person who's running the store. You can [22:46] be a student in the presence of a [22:47] teacher. You can be a parent in the [22:49] presence of a of a son or a daughter. [22:50] You can be a spouse in presence in the [22:53] presence of your spouse. The change in [22:54] context really does [22:58] usher in some fundamental psychological [23:00] changes in just the states of [23:02] consciousness that are available. More [23:04] and more as you become sensitive to [23:07] these changes and you become sensitive [23:08] to what it's like to actually not be [23:11] psychologically reactive and and not be [23:14] definable by your own self-concept, your [23:18] own ide. You're not identifying with [23:19] anything. You're not hanging your hat on [23:21] anything. You're not thinking about [23:22] yourself in the in the kind of terms [23:25] that you would export to others and then [23:27] care about what they think about you, [23:29] right? Like you're there's a kind of [23:30] invulnerability [23:32] uh that that arises that's not born of [23:38] being welldefended. [23:40] It's born of of of being evaporated. [23:42] Right? It's like you're no longer [23:44] keeping score in those ways. You can [23:46] leave aside all those circumstances [23:47] where it's appropriate to react to [23:49] someone and you know I'm I'm sure, [23:51] >> you know, I'm into martial arts and [23:52] self-defense and yes, you're not [23:54] supposed to be just this puddle of goo [23:56] out in the world who can be just [23:57] mistreated by people and and you know, [23:59] never put up, you know, resistance, but [24:01] it's um psychologically, [24:05] you know, even if even if a state like [24:08] anger or contraction is sometimes [24:11] normative and appropriate, the question [24:14] is how long is normative and appropriate [24:16] for like how how long do you want to [24:18] stay angry for? In my experience, you [24:21] kind of classically negative emotions [24:22] like anger and fear are appropriate as [24:26] salience cues. You know, they they [24:28] orient you to, you know, an emergency or [24:30] a potential emergency, but then in [24:32] dealing with the emergency, they're [24:34] almost never the state you want to be [24:35] in. It's better to actually be calm in [24:38] an emergency. Would you say that [24:40] meditation as a practice done for a few [24:42] minutes each day or with the app that [24:44] it's a um kind of a step function is it [24:46] very nonlinear in terms of people's [24:48] progress? What does the meditation [24:50] practice look like over time? [24:52] >> The first step function is to very [24:54] clearly experience the difference [24:57] between being lost in thought and being [24:59] clearly aware of any part of experience [25:02] including thought. and to notice [25:05] the freedom the comparative [25:07] psychological freedom that gives you. [25:09] Right? So you can like you're [25:11] something's made you angry and now [25:12] you're thinking about all the reasons [25:13] why you should be angry and have every [25:15] right to be angry and what you're going [25:16] to tell that person when you see them [25:18] and and then you notice you're thinking, [25:20] right? And you notice the connection [25:22] between the thought and the anger, [25:24] right? you like like the the minute [25:26] spent lost in thought about what's [25:29] making you angry is the thing that [25:31] dragged through the physiology of anger [25:35] and from the point of view of the one [25:36] who's being mindful this is tremendous [25:39] relief I mean and at minimum it's a [25:41] degree of freedom you can at that point [25:43] decide well how long do I want to be [25:45] angry for right is it useful to stay [25:47] angry do I want to be angry for 1 minute [25:49] 2 minutes 5 minutes 10 minutes or [25:51] because but and but before you have that [25:53] capacity to be mindful [25:55] You're going to helplessly be as angry [25:57] as you're going to be for as long as [25:58] you're going to be that way just based [26:00] on the kind of the time course of your [26:03] thinking about it, brooding about it, [26:04] telling your wife about it. You are [26:06] going to be the hostage of that for as [26:08] long as you'll be the hostage of that. [26:09] You'll have nothing you can do apart [26:12] from just deciding to, you know, check [26:14] out and watch Game of Thrones again for [26:15] the third time, right? Like like it's [26:17] just you can divert your attention to [26:19] something else, which is, you know, [26:21] sometimes a good thing to do. But [26:23] mindfulness even dualistic mindfulness [26:25] gives you this capacity to just observe [26:29] the mechanics of this and then get off [26:31] the ride when you when you whenever you [26:33] want. The other step function is [26:36] noticing that there is no one who is [26:39] doing that. I mean this is the [26:40] non-duality the the selflessness the the [26:43] centerlessness of awareness right the [26:45] fact that there's no place from which [26:47] the mindfulness is being aimed but the [26:49] fact that there's just this open [26:51] condition in which everything is [26:52] appearing you know thoughts included at [26:55] that point your mindfulness no longer [26:58] becomes [26:59] it's no longer this this dualistic [27:03] effort to strategically pay attention to [27:07] anything as opposed to being lost in [27:09] thought It's just what's left when the [27:12] present recognized thought unravels. [27:16] Even before it unravels, what's [27:17] recognized is you are simply identical [27:21] to the condition in which everything is [27:23] appearing. [27:23] >> Could you tell us why psychedelics can [27:27] be useful, use safely and responsibly, [27:29] age appropriate, context appropriate, [27:32] >> ideally with some clinical or other type [27:34] of guidance. All that stated, what are [27:37] your thoughts about psychedelics in [27:38] terms of how they intersect with the [27:40] discussion that we've been having and [27:42] what utility do they play in recognition [27:45] of the self or in other sorts of brain [27:47] changes? [27:48] >> I would just say that for many of us, I [27:49] mean, certainly for me, psychedelics [27:52] were indispensable in the beginning in [27:55] proving to me that that a first person [27:58] interrogation of the mind was worth [28:01] doing. For somebody like me at 18, the [28:04] noun meditation meant absolutely nothing [28:07] to me before before I uh took my first [28:10] dose of in this case it was MDMA. The [28:13] the li one of the limitations of a drug [28:15] is that you know obviously no matter how [28:17] good the experience the drug wears off [28:19] and then you're back to you more in more [28:22] or less your usual form and now you have [28:25] a memory of the experience and it can be [28:27] a fairly dim memory. I mean, some of [28:29] these experiences are so discontinuous [28:31] with normal waking consciousness that it [28:33] can be like trying to remember a dream [28:35] where you recognize, okay, there there [28:38] was a way of being that is quite [28:40] different than what I'm tending to [28:42] access by default. And it is different [28:45] in ways that are obviously better and [28:48] and and psychologically more healthy. I [28:50] mean, it's possible to be healthy [28:52] psychologically [28:54] in a way that I I never imagined. Once [28:57] you have one of these experiences on [29:00] psychedelics or on a drug like MDMA, you [29:03] know that there's a there there. You [29:05] know that unconditional love is is a [29:07] possibility. If your only framework is [29:10] the good experiences, the good feels you [29:12] had on whatever drug it was, I think you [29:15] can be misled to just seek lots of peak [29:18] experiences. You're just trying to [29:19] string together a lot of peak [29:21] experiences, hoping they're going to [29:22] change you. every one of which by by [29:25] definition is going to be impermanent. [29:27] What everyone really wants whether they [29:29] know it or not and their right to want [29:31] is a type of freedom that is compatible [29:35] with even ordinary states of [29:37] consciousness. I mean so what I I hadn't [29:39] done psychedelics for 25 years because I [29:43] again they were super useful for me in [29:44] the beginning. Then I discovered [29:46] meditation on the basis of of those [29:50] experiences. got really into meditation [29:52] and realized okay this is a much more [29:54] you know conceptually this makes much [29:56] more sense to me this is delivering the [29:58] goods you know in terms of my experience [30:01] um there's no need to keep having these [30:04] you know seeking these peak experiences [30:06] with with drugs so what I think people [30:09] want is um a way of be having free [30:12] attention [30:14] and unconditional love [30:16] in this you know totally ordinary and [30:20] potentially [30:22] chaotic human experience, you know, [30:24] which can be psychologically fraught and [30:27] you can meet, you know, iterations of [30:29] yourself that you don't like that are [30:31] that are not equipping you to be the [30:32] best possible person in that [30:34] relationship. And what we want to do is [30:37] cut through all of that and actually, [30:40] you know, be in love with our lives and [30:43] with the people in our lives more and [30:45] more of the time. I'm not saying that [30:47] repeated psychedelic journeys aren't [30:50] can't be integral to that project but [30:53] but you know that it can't that the [30:55] project can't be being high all the time [30:58] right so whatever is extractable from [31:00] that the the the occasional you know [31:02] psychedelic trip has got to be mappable [31:05] into ordinary waking consciousness and [31:08] the point of the real point of contact [31:10] does kind of run through this you know [31:12] what I've been calling the illusion of [31:13] the self and again it is that part is [31:17] discoverable without any changes in [31:20] contents. [31:21] >> None of this can really be solved in a [31:23] single practice it sounds like. But it [31:25] does seem to me based on what you've [31:28] told us today is that only through a um [31:30] a deep understanding of the self as it [31:32] really is as opposed to this illusion [31:36] that you framed up could we actually [31:39] arrive at some answers about like what's [31:41] actually right for each and every one of [31:43] us. I mean there's one generic answer [31:45] that I think can be extracted both from [31:49] psyched psychedelics and from meditation [31:51] and just from just thinking more clearly [31:53] about the nature of of our lives and [31:56] it's it's to become more processoriented [32:00] and to be more and more sensitive to the [32:02] the mirageike character of of achieving [32:07] our goals. Right now I'm not I'm not [32:09] against achieving goals. I have a lot of [32:10] goals. I've, you know, I'm, you know, [32:12] I'm very busy. There are lots of things [32:13] I want to get done and I'm as satisfied [32:15] as anyone to finish a project. And but [32:18] if you look at the time course of all of [32:20] that, you know, fulfillment and [32:24] you you you just there few lessons [32:26] everyone I think has to draw. One is [32:28] most of your life is spent in the [32:30] process, right? Right? Like the go like [32:31] the moment at which the goal is you know [32:34] fully conquered that is just I mean that [32:37] has a you know it's a tiny duration and [32:41] it has a very short halflife and the [32:44] moment you you arrive at it it begins to [32:48] recede because in the meantime you have [32:50] all these other goals that are have [32:51] appeared on the horizon and in some [32:54] sense if you're if you're focused on [32:56] goals you really you can never arrive. I [32:59] think what we're we're all looking for [33:01] in life, we're looking for good enough [33:03] reasons [33:05] to let our attention [33:08] fully rest in the present. That is the [33:10] logic of success. Like the the s the [33:13] sense like I've got all these things I [33:14] want to do. If I could just get rich [33:16] enough or fit enough or, you know, dial [33:18] in my sleep well enough or, you know, [33:20] improve my life in all these ways, get [33:22] the right relationship, wouldn't it be [33:23] great to be married? You know, I want to [33:25] start a family. I want all of these [33:27] these things, right? I'm not I'm not [33:29] discounting those relative forms of [33:32] happiness or sources of happiness, but [33:34] one thing is absolutely clear. It's [33:37] possible to be miserable in the presence [33:39] of all of those things, right? It's and [33:41] you can add you can add great wealth and [33:43] fame and everything on top of that. It's [33:45] possible it's possible to be absolutely [33:47] miserable having everything anyone could [33:49] seemingly want. So, what is it that we [33:50] actually want in all of our seeking to [33:53] arrange the props in our lives and our [33:56] and our and the story to have a a [33:58] convincing enough story to tell about [34:00] ourselves that we're doing the right [34:01] thing? Uh what are what is all of that [34:05] effort predicated on? is predicated on [34:07] this desire and this expectation that if [34:11] we could get all of this stuff in the [34:13] right place [34:15] and not have anything terrifying to [34:17] worry about, right? Everyone we love is [34:19] healthy for the moment, right? And we're [34:21] healthy and it's you we've got something [34:22] to look forward to on the weekend and [34:24] there's not some there's not a you know [34:26] a plumbing leak in the house that we [34:28] have to immediately respond to and we [34:30] like our house and you know our career [34:32] is going fine. Now, can we just actually [34:35] give up the war? Right? Can we can we [34:37] can we fully locate our our sense of [34:40] well-being in the present moment? Is it [34:43] can we relax the impulse [34:46] to brood about the past or think [34:48] anxiously about the future for long [34:51] enough to discover that all of this here [34:54] is enough. Even if we're guarding our [34:56] time to do the things that are most [34:58] important to us, we can spend all of [35:01] that time [35:03] work, you know, regretting the past or [35:05] anxiously expecting the future and [35:07] telling just bouncing between past and [35:10] future in our thinking about ourselves [35:11] and our lives and basically just dancing [35:15] over the present and never making [35:16] contact with it. Right? So what we I I [35:19] think what we want is a circumstance [35:21] where attention can be located in the [35:24] present in a way that's truly [35:25] fulfilling. And [35:27] unless you have had some kind of radical [35:29] insight that allows you to do that on [35:32] demand, [35:34] you are in some sense hostage to the [35:38] circumstances of your life to do it do [35:40] that for you. You're you're constantly [35:41] trying to to engineer a state of the [35:45] world that will propagate back on a [35:47] state of self that will make the the [35:50] present moment good enough. And what [35:52] meditation does and psychedelics to some [35:55] degree does this, but meditation very [35:57] directly does this. It reverses the [36:00] causality and and lets you actually [36:03] change change state such that you can be [36:06] fulfilled before anything happens. [36:09] Right? nothing. Your your happiness is [36:11] no longer predicated on the next good [36:13] thing happening. You can be in the [36:15] presence of the next good or bad thing [36:17] already being fulfilled. It's like how [36:19] much can you puncture that seeking [36:24] happiness project with the recognition [36:27] that you're already free. It's not that [36:30] you just need to be a pushover when you [36:32] learn how to meditate or do any we work [36:34] on yourself in any of these ways, but um [36:38] what I think you I think you want to [36:40] find is you want to find your point of [36:42] rest in the midst of of any struggle. [36:46] >> I feel very blessed um in no small part [36:49] because of our conversation today. Thank [36:51] you so much. [36:52] >> Well, to be continued. [36:52] >> To be continued. We'll do it again and [36:54] again and [music] again.