“In your daily experience, matter doesn’t really matter that much. ”
Sam Harris is obsessed with consciousness. As most theists that he likes debating, he believes that when it comes to our experience, matter (cells, molecules or atoms) doesn’t really matter that much. However, he doesn’t take the new-age spiritual path, nor doesn’t assume the existence of a soul, as many people do. It’s consciousness all the way to the bottom.
Sam’s meditation app, called Waking Up, is all about understanding that all the things that we experience in our daily lives are appearances in consciousness (something that I accepted at an intellectual level before trying up his guided meditations). What Sam’s trying to do with his course is to make you experience this realisation. For this purpose, he deploys an arsenal of mind tricks, all trying to make you realize that whatever “you” think you are, does not really exist. I was familiar with the concept (called non-self in the Buddhist tradition) but I was not aware that I could have an insightful experience around this paradoxical observation. Sam will guide you to look for the center of attention, to search for the looker within, to seek the seer that you think is in control … you get the picture. Sadly none of these worked on me.
Still, I found his course valuable and took some take-aways that elevated my practice. Here there are:
Watch yourself from a distance
It may sound silly but a lot of my early meditation failures had to do with too much struggle. Focusing on the breath, as simple as it may sound, was analogous to an intense workout, as I tried to get as close as possible to the nostrils.
Sam’s advice to take some distance between the illusory center of self from my head and the nose proved to make the practice more pleasurable.
Arrive immediately
If you see meditation like a gym session for your mind (which happens to be popular analogy), then you may think some prep work would help. After all, one doesn’t start pumping iron the moment he enters the gym. But here is where the analogy fails: awareness should not need any mental stretching to get going.
Sam advocates for a sudden start. The moment you press play, it's game on and you should drop into a state of wide-open awareness. Check your environment, your emotions and you are already noticing the adventure of consciousness.
Analyze your thoughts
This one is meditation practice 1o1. And sometimes I did catch myself meta analyzing my thoughts. Not always, and there were many sessions where I ignored this completely. Sam repeated this for so long (did I mention the course takes 50 days?) that it finally stuck.
So there you have it. I liked the course, even though I failed to have the main Aha moment. My insights may be silly for an experienced meditator but super practical for me. Hope they help you too.