Sam Harris, PhD: Cutting Through to Consciousness Without a Center

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July 2, 2024

Sam Harris, PhD: Cutting Through to Consciousness Without a Center

Sam Harris July 2, 2024

How do meditation and mindfulness accelerate moral progress? Is spiritual insight alone sufficient to solve today’s problems? Dr. Sam Harris is a five-time New York Times bestselling author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and host of the popular podcast Making Sense. He is also someone who has practiced meditation for more than 30 years, having studied with teachers in Tibetan, Burmese, Indian, and Western traditions. Here, Tami Simon sits down with Sam Harris for a deep conversation on the nature of consciousness and the implications of spiritual realization. 

Tune in for this “aha moment”–filled podcast exploring: the illusion of the self and the default state of identity; advaita and nonduality; two different types of mystery; the future of AI; psychic phenomena; synchronicity, superstition, and skepticism; a new perspective on how to be happy; the superpower of noticing; tantra; Dzogchen and “the goal as the path”; looking for what is looking; resolving the view; becoming mindful of “the glimpse”; meditating from the neck down; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author of five New York Times best sellers. His work covers a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, political polarization, rationality—but generally focuses on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. His books include The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and Waking Up. Sam hosts the popular Making Sense podcast and is the creator of the Waking Up app, which offers a modern approach to living a more examined life, through both in-depth mindfulness training and secular wisdom. Sam has practiced meditation for over 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

Author photo © Christopher Patey

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Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

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Sam Harris, PhD: Cutting Through to Consciousness With...

How do meditation and mindfulness accelerate moral progress? Is spiritual insight alone sufficient to solve today’s problems? Dr. Sam Harris is a five-time New York Times bestselling author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and host of the popular podcast Making Sense. He is also someone who has practiced meditation for more than 30 years, having studied with teachers in Tibetan, Burmese, Indian, and Western traditions. Here, Tami Simon sits down with Sam Harris for a deep conversation on the nature of consciousness and the implications of spiritual realization. 

Tune in for this “aha moment”–filled podcast exploring: the illusion of the self and the default state of identity; advaita and nonduality; two different types of mystery; the future of AI; psychic phenomena; synchronicity, superstition, and skepticism; a new perspective on how to be happy; the superpower of noticing; tantra; Dzogchen and “the goal as the path”; looking for what is looking; resolving the view; becoming mindful of “the glimpse”; meditating from the neck down; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

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[ENCORE EPISODE] Jon Kabat-Zinn: Befriending Pain

**SPECIAL ENCORE PRESENTATION**

Current statistics tell us that 20% of the US population has some form of chronic pain, defined as severe discomfort that has continued for six months or more. That’s more than 50 million people. Jon Kabat-Zinn has received international acclaim for his leading work in bringing the life-changing practices of meditation and mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. In this inspiring podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Jon about his empowering new book, Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief, and how we can greatly improve our lives (and our entire world) by reframing the way we relate to our thoughts, our minds, and the sensations of our bodies.

Listen in as they discuss the epidemic of chronic pain and the power of mindfulness to ease suffering of all kinds, the myth of the “good meditator,” the body as the starting point for practice, exploring your “emotionally freighted thoughts,” our longing to be who we really are, working with the mind and learning to inhabit a space of embodied awareness, the refuge that is meditation practice, letting go of our stories, befriending the sensory field of what we call pain, the miracle of life on Earth, the Buddha’s teaching on mindfulness as the direct path to liberation, surfing the waves of your own experience, unity within diversity and the arising of compassion, focusing on what’s right instead of what’s wrong, how we are all on a growth curve on life’s journey, and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at

www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue

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