#34 – Sam Harris, Ph.D.: The transformative power of mindfulness

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  There are two broad families of meditation, and Sam considers mindfulness the deeper one

  Concentration practices (a mantra, a candle flame, a random sound) try to absorb attention in one object so thoroughly that thought stops arising; a thought appearing means you are not focused enough. Mindfulness, which comes from the Theravada practice of vipassana (insight meditation), is not trying to exclude anything. It starts with an object like the breath but widens to sounds, sensations, moods and thoughts. Its big advantage, Sam argues, is that it is compatible with any experience at all, including working out or watching a movie.

• 02

  Our default state is being lost in thought, and that inner narration is mostly unpleasant

  Sam suggests that discursive thinking may begin when toddlers, around two and a half to three, start narrating to themselves as if talking to a parent, and that it never switches off because language is so useful for survival. Evolution, he stresses, does not care about well-being as long as we survive and reproduce. So a mind that is miserable but reproductively fit is perfectly acceptable to natural selection. Getting past that is the project.

• 03

  Concentration is intrinsically pleasurable, which is also its trap

  Sam's view is that boredom is simply a lack of attention: with enough focus, even wind on your hand becomes exquisitely pleasant. But he warns that people can get hooked on these state changes and mistake them for the point of practice. Any pleasure that depends on a concentrated mind is impermanent and will be lost.

• 04

  Pain and suffering are different things

  Meditation does not remove physical pain. If you resolve not to move, even a comfortable chair becomes excruciating, and some practitioners sit for 12 hours. Suffering is the fast cascade of resistance, contraction, and worry about how long it will last. Sam's paradox: the moment a sensation feels 'intolerable,' you have already tolerated it. In very intense states he has found that pain's valence can disappear, to the point where he isn't sure if he is feeling agony or ecstasy. He adds that some pains may defeat even the best meditator.

• 05

  Peter now ranks emotional health as one of two big shifts in how he thinks about longevity

  Five years earlier Peter would have dismissed happiness as an afterthought that follows from avoiding disease. Now he says living to 100 or delaying heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's is pointless if you are too miserable to enjoy it. The other shift, which he leaves for another day, is the kind of physical body you need to age well. Sam prefers to talk about well-being and flourishing rather than 'happiness,' because those words can include grief and loss.

• 06

  The goal with anger is faster recovery, not never feeling it

  Sam says getting angry is not the measure of having lost. Cutting anger from 10 minutes to 10 seconds to one second means 'factors of 10' that are enormous. He makes room for useful anger, such as self-defense on a sidewalk, but otherwise wants to drop it quickly and then decide calmly whether to confront someone. Without mindfulness, he says, 'you will be angry as long as you're angry.'

• 07

  Short retreats are mostly the hard part

  Sam tells Peter not to bother with a four-day retreat. He says a week to ten days is the shortest he can recommend without caveats. The first three days are the hardest at any retreat length. At day three of a ten-day retreat, home is still far enough away that people tend to surrender and really practice.

• 08

  Vipassana targets three characteristics; Dzogchen goes straight at the self

  Insight practice looks at impermanence, selflessness, and unsatisfactoriness. Sam says the last is often mistranslated as 'suffering,' as if the Buddha taught that life is suffering. His metaphor: the boat is always leaking and we are always bailing. Dzogchen, a Tibetan non-dual tradition, goes directly at the feeling that there is a subject behind your face. Sam warns that mindfulness taught as goal-seeking can keep people from seeing this even on retreat.

• 09

  MDMA gave Sam his first glimpse of a mind without self-concern, but he flags neurotoxicity

  Earlier psilocybin and marijuana use felt like ordinary drug states to him: an altered state, but no altered trait. MDMA at 18 removed the constant background monitoring of what his best friend thought of him, along with the zero-sum envy that limits 'sympathetic joy' for others' success. He has not taken it in years and stays 'somewhat concerned' that it may be neurotoxic. He says he knows of no evidence that LSD is neurotoxic. For debilitating PTSD, he thinks some toxicity could be an acceptable trade.

• 10

  Loving-kindness (metta) practice deliberately reframes everyone

  Unlike mindfulness, metta has a goal: feel goodwill as intensely and durably as possible. Its central reframe is that everyone is suffering and was once a child. Sam says that taken far enough, this frame can extend compassion even to someone like Saddam Hussein.