From: "curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
I have been following the excellent comments on this topic with delight. I loved this book, especially where it helped me draw my own belief lines by disagreeing with it. My feelings exactly. Thanks for taking the time to put some of your agreements *and* disagreements into words, because they help me to resolve my feelings about the book as well. Overall Sam's book is a huge step in opening up the dialogue for people who are fans of altered states but not into the presuppositions about what they mean. Barry and I have discussed how the ranking of experiences in spiritual traditions seems bogus. This is also my major criticism of Sam's ideas, but I'll start with what I found great about the book. He does an excellent job explaining his perspective on mindfulness meditation, both in techniques and its goals. It answered questions I had about my own irregular practice of mindfulness meditation and how it relates to my previous experience with TM. I think he did a pretty good job of describing the moment-by-moment mechanics of beginning mindfulness meditation, which is a good idea. It gives the novice a clue that the practice is not as simple as it may first appear, and that there is great depth to it that may take months or years to develop. Without going into details I believe that both practices lead me to the same place mentally. I think the mindfulness meditation has an edge in less unwanted side effects than TM for me, and it seems a bit more efficient. I am not in a position to judge which is "better" or even what that concept would mean in terms of meditation. I believe neuroscience may sort this out someday, but we are a long way from enough information to draw broader conclusions. Till then I say to each his own. Meditation of any kind is nice to have in your human tool kit. (But go easy on the Kool Aid.) I agree, and I'm glad that Sam put as much effort as he did into presenting the possible benefits of meditation and spirituality to an audience probably unfamiliar with both. I have a bias toward meditation taught without the heavy belief system baggage of TM. I don't think any of that is either helpful or intellectually supportable outside the context of historical interest. Same goes for the Buddhist beliefs and assumptions. As modern people we should admit that we really don't know as much as these traditions posture by assumption about the states reached in meditation. We have an obligation to be more honest about what assumptions we are taking on faith upfront. To stick with any practice you have to have some assumptions. What they are based on is where our intellectual integrity rubber hits the road. People who want to make claims that their internal state is better than mine seem like real boors to me no matter what tradition they come from. If it is so wonderful in there then express something creatively brilliant and I will give you props for that. The section about the relationship with the brain and the concept of self is a fantastic condensation of neuro-research as it applies to our sense of self. It challenges a lot of preconceptions, although I believe it still falls a bit short of Sam's conclusions from it. The science is still young and speculation is still high. But the intellectual challenge of deciding for myself what the research means to my views was fantastic and thought provoking. I wound up feeling that Sam has his own "optical blind spot" about self. I get the feeling that he is FAR more influenced by the dogma that was presented to him in his early Advaitan and Dogzchen training than he lets on, and that he personally feels *very* strongly that the feeling of 'having a self' is *lesser* than the feeling of 'not having a self.' Me, I see them both as feelings, with no hierarchy in sight. I think that one of the disservices he may be doing to meditation newbies is to instill in them a feeling that they're not doing meditation "right" unless they have this mystical feeling of 'no-self' that he places on such a pedestal. I don't see it that way. Finally I come to the part I disagree with Sam most on: his assumptions about the value of the altered states brought about through meditation. I like meditation and feel it has a personal value in small doses. I am less enthusiastic about the extreme form of immersion both Sam and I have gone through in different traditions. You have to be pretty far down your glass of Kool Aid to even want to subject yourself to that kind of exposure. Love this! I've missed your colorful "worldly spiritual It is both founded on assumptions, and also stokes the furnace of generating more of them. At best it is finding out what can happen to your mind under such extreme conditions, and at worst it is causing you to be altered in a way that is not good, but we don't even know all the implications of yet. Certainly the recommendation from the hoary past don't intellectually cut it for me. That has the epistemological solidity of Dungeons and Dragons role play games. Sam's description of being caught up in and identified with thoughts as "suffering" and experiencing the illusion of the self as "freedom" seems unwarranted to me. And to me. The most egregious thing about the book from my point of view is that he seems to be making a STRONG case for believing/experiencing that one 'has no self,' but he never presents any *benefits* of either believing or experiencing that. I come away not convinced he's ever achieved an experiential 'no-self' state for more than a few moments himself. I think he's passing along former teachers' feelings about this supposed state rather than his own experience with it. Completely agree about the "suffering" thang, BTW. It bugs me about Buddhism, and it bugs me about Sam's Neo-Buddhism. The experience of having a subjective self is *NOT* the same as "suffering" in my book, and I chafe when I hear someone talk as if it is. It reminds me of Maharishi's condescending letter to the "peaceless and suffering humanity" in its presumptions. They both should just speak for themselves to those of us who do not share their perspective. They are trying to impose a problem on me that I do not have. Agreed. I agree with Sam that the silent aspect of my consciousness is not a "Self' in the way Maharishi claimed. I found this satisfying because when I tried TM again after 18 years without the belief system I was struck with how bogus this claim seemed to me. I am not sure it is realizing the illusion of self either as Sam claims. It just seems to be a thing we can do with our minds that is satisfying for its own sake and seems to feel like a good place to flow from afterward. Exactly. Just another stop along the way, not some 'goal' or 'destination' we should be "seeking." Speaking of flow , this concept of flow states in activity holds much more appeal for me than static meditation. Me, too. It's probably something we share as creative types, you as a musician/songwriter, me as a writer. Given a choice, I would prefer an hour of that flow, lost in writing something I'm enjoying writing...watching it appear on the screen in front of me effortlessly, as if of its own volition to an hour of completely thoughtless, selfless sitting meditation any day. If for no other reason, there is a *product* at the end of many periods of flow state consciousness, and there is none at the end of a period of meditation, no matter how subjectively profound. You're actually *doing something* that can have an effect on the world, not just sitting there playing with your own mind and affecting no one. I believe we reach the goal of meditation states through many means that force us to act more directly from our more full capacity of our unconscious processes, like performing music or some other art and engaging in intense athletics. I appreciate that Sam acknowledges that we have no evidence for anyone living in a permanent state of perfect anything. I am not so sure this is a bad thing. Sam presupposes that being caught up in thought is a bad thing and is suffering. I disagree. I agree with you, and disagree with him. I think he picked up a bit too many dogma cooties from his time with Advaitan and Buddhist teachers. The techniques they taught him may have been of value, but I'm not sure that the assumptions why one would want to practice them are of value. I appreciate all the various states of my functioning and don't have any goal to be permanent state of a particular style of functioning, no matter how pleasurable. It is all part of being human and I think permanent bliss would be another version of hell. The ebb and flow of my ability to act from my highest capacity is part of the dance of being alive. I don't need to stack that deck more than I do already. Well said, and similar to my approach. I neither seek so-called "permanent" states of consciousness nor value them. My experience with any number of altered states of consciousness over the decades leads me to believe that if anyone ever "achieved" one of them for long enough to believe that it's "permanent," then that person is truly STUCK, and won't be able to move along and grow any more until they get past the illusion of permanancy. Things change. Those who don't change with them are either rocks, or dead. I am more interested in finding inner capacity from being put in challenging situations that force me to dig deeper beneath my natural lazy comfort/pleasure seeking MO and rise to the occasion. Sometimes that process sucks and is painful, but I can't deny that it sometimes is how I get to my best stuff inside. This is the premise of a great book on flow states I read recently that concludes that we often need an external push to get to our full capacities, not by closing our eyes. External push, internal push, whatever... I don't know if the thing that "jumpstarts" the creative flow can ever be defined, *except for a single individual*. When it comes to writing, some writers got an inspiration and followed through on it, some were forced into writing what they did by external circumstances, and others just took a flying fuck at it. I'm intrigued by a series of books that have recently been turned into a TV series called "Outlander." The woman who wrote those books wrote the first one as an experiment, to see what it was like to write a book, and to teach herself how to write one. Quite a few sold copies of the books later, it would seem she succeeded. She was "well off" financially, and had no "need" to write what she did...she just took a chance and did it. I've never heard whether she feels that she achieved any kind of flow state while writing it, but I'm sure she learned *something*. Me, I'm just searching lately for the story idea that keeps me interested in it long enough to finish it. :-) Sam's book reinforced to me that I am really more interested in what he calls person hood and Maharishi calls our relative self than I am of any altered state, especially the silent aspect of my consciousness. It is far from the goal of my life to live more silent awareness in my activity. I have all I need to chase my creative endeavors and it is in those that my life has its highest meaning as I define and choose it for myself. Yup. I have been there, done that with 24/7 silence and witnessing, and I have been there, done that with 24/7 immersion in activity, and I don't really see how "better/best" applies in any way to those experiences. One is what one is in the moment. Seeking something else -- even if you call it "enlightenment" -- is just a way of not being in the moment. Spirituality is like an old girlfriend to me. I have fond memories and don't regret that we gave it the shot we did. ( And I won't be so petty as to mention all my missing CDs when she packed up and left with her things.) But we broke up for good reasons. And we are better off without each other. I can even wish the next person who wants to take on the project of dating her the best. I enjoyed a sweet nostalgia buzz when I read about Sam's 18 hour a day meditation retreats. But in the end I am really glad it isn't me! This is probably the best (and funniest) part of your post, Curtis. I completely agree. Heck, we may have dated the same gal, for all I know. But she's better off wherever she is now and bothering whoever she's bothering now. :-) I think that Sam Harris' book will be looked upon as the most important spiritual book of the year, possibly the decade, but more because of the number of buttons it will push among the "spiritual" than because of its impact on those who never followed a spiritual path before reading it. I would imagine that many, many people will be offended by some of the things he writes in it. Neo-advaitans certainly will be, because of his Poona-ji stories, but many Buddhists will be as well, because of his peculiar understandings of what they teach. I personally wish that he'd resisted the urge to dump from on high on the guy who wrote the NDE book...that sounded more like petty jealousy to me than it did scientific outrage. But I like that he's stirring the pot and getting people to look at old technology (meditation and spiritual practice) in new ways. All in all, I would say that he's approaching it a lot like a bull in a china shop, assuming that his self's ideas on all of this are somehow more valid because he doesn't believe he has a self. :-) As I said, I would suspect that in his own meditations he spends as much time lost in thought as anyone else, and that his *personal* experience with no-thought/no-self states is pretty limited, but I'm happy that he chose to write about it and open up the discussion to new areas of interest. I have a couple of friends who are more "actively atheist" than I am, and I've told them about the book and they're reading it. I will be interested in hearing what they think of it, and whether it's too much for them. Anyway, good to hear from you, and always good to hear your thoughts about the whole long, strange trip it's been, and continues to be. Party on, dude...
