#398 — Thoughts Without a Thinker

Sam provides an update about his experience of the LA fires and shares a few selections from the Waking Up app. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe http://samharris.org/subscribe. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up https://www.wakingup.com/makingsense app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:22Sam Harris?

  Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Well, it has been an interesting two weeks. If you have followed me on Substack, you know that I had to flee my house, which contains my recording studio. And we have not been back, and it remains to be seen when we will go back. The house happily was spared, but it's very close to houses that burned down. So it remains to be seen what we're going to do about that. I will get back to the podcast soon enough. I think I have a video podcast coming up soon with Rick Caruso to talk about the LA fires and

• 1:05Sam Harris?

  the future of California politics, perhaps. And obviously, there's so much to talk about in politics and in the world. I'm recording this just after watching the inauguration,

• 1:20Sam Harris?

  which brought up several thoughts. But two weeks ago, when I was at my desk seeing the first clouds of smoke emerge in the West, I was about to release a sample of lesson content from the Waking Up app, which I thought might maintain the New Year's resolution frame of mind that I imagined people would be in at this point in January. I must say I'm pretty far from that myself. But I'm also quite in touch with how important

• 1:54Sam Harris?

  Meditation and the insights derived from it have been for me in the last two weeks. Honestly, I don't know what my mind would be like but for the fact that I can notice the mad work that thoughts about the past and future do moment by moment and break the spell. And that's certainly meditation by another name. So anyway, if this can be useful to you or is of interest, feel free to seek out more over at wakingup.com. As always, if you can't afford the app, you can get a free subscription or you can pay whatever you want, same policy as the podcast.

• 2:37Sam Harris?

  And I will be back with you soon in another vein, and I look forward to it. We have this notion that mental growth stops in adulthood. You can learn new things, of course, but your mind itself doesn't improve, or at least that's what people seem to imagine. And so we seem to view our minds as being entirely distinct from our bodies because we understand that physical training is real. There are people who lose 100 pounds and become competitive triathletes, right?

• 3:18Sam Harris?

  Now, however rare those extreme transformations are, we know that they're possible. And the rest of us pursue our own efforts at physical self-improvement on that same landscape of possibility. We can see the landmarks. In fact, they're continually advertised to us. Every month, we see a new celebrity who got in great shape for a film, for instance. So there are no secrets here. And if we don't decide to get in the best shape of our lives, starting right now, it's not because we didn't know that it was possible.

• 3:56Sam Harris?

  But most of us are genuinely unaware that it is possible to change our minds. The concept of mental training is barely entertained. And yet, there really are things we can do that lead to cognitive and emotional and even ethical changes that are wholly good for us. So it seems to me what we need is a new norm of human growth, where it's understood that growth is possible and even necessary continuously throughout life, intellectually, in our relationships, in the way we prioritize the use of our attention. At what age do we learn how to have better conversations?

• 4:41Sam Harris?

  At what age do we learn to have better conversations with ourselves? And at what age do we learn that any conversation with oneself, the very structure of our thinking, is in fact based on an illusion that creates so much suffering for us? Now, of course, there are many components to living and examining life. And there's no single way of thinking or use of attention that accomplishes everything we want. But meditation, real meditation, is an essential piece here. And the fact that none of us are told this in school or by our doctors indicates nothing more than a cultural blind spot.

• 5:26Sam Harris?

  It used to be that physical exercise was something that only a very strange person would pursue deliberately. And smoking was considered a healthy habit. There were actually television ads in the 40s and 50s showing doctors smoking in their offices. And the ads claim that in a national survey of doctors, more doctors smoked Camels than any other cigarette. It's possible for an entire society to be totally confused about something rather important.

• 5:59Sam Harris?

  Now, anyone who has real experience with meditation knows that there's something to be discovered there that they were missing, and it's something that most people are still missing. And the fact that most people don't know they're missing it doesn't make it any less of a problem, for them or for the rest of society. Once you know how to meditate, you see that more or less all of the world's chaos, apart from natural disasters, is born of our lack of insight into our mental lives. All the conflict between people and all the pointless suffering it causes, all the disorder in people's lives born of their own misbehavior,

• 6:40Sam Harris?

  these are symptoms of people's minds being totally out of control. The next time something happens in your life that makes you angry, or afraid, or sad, how long will you spend locked in the prison of one of those emotions? And what will you do there? What indelible mark might you make in your life or in our world on the basis of one of those emotions? One benefit that people get from learning to meditate is the ability to simply let go of negative emotions. You can decide how long you want to stay angry for. Right? That's a superpower

• 7:23Sam Harris?

  when you look at what's happening in the world. You can get off the ride before you say or do something stupid that you'll later regret. Now, negative emotions aside, have you noticed how fragmented your attention has become? Have you noticed how hard it is to sit down and read a book for an hour? When was the last time you read a book for an hour without checking your email or social media?

• 7:52Sam Harris?

  There is a multi-front war being fought for our attention, and most of us are losing it. Have you seen the people staggering around with their smartphones, even crossing the street while texting? Literally stepping in front of traffic without looking up? Have you seen parents around their kids visibly tethered to this digital leash? Are you one of these parents? There was a recent photo exhibit that was rather brilliant, where a photographer captured people using their smartphones, but then removed the phones from their hands so they see these images of people in various situations in life while staring vacantly into their open palms.

• 8:35Sam Harris?

  It's worth thinking about this psychological experiment we're performing on ourselves. You will not learn to meditate by accident, and you won't learn it by jogging, or hiking, or playing music, or doing any of the other things you do to feel good. Paradoxically, once you know how to meditate, you can experience the same insights into the nature of your mind while jogging, and hiking, and playing music, and doing all the other things you like to do. But you are very unlikely to have these insights and experience the associated change in your perception of yourself and the world

• 9:14Sam Harris?

  without explicitly learning the practice of meditation. When you sit down to meditate, you will find yourself assailed by thoughts. Thoughts about what you need to do later in the day, thoughts about things that worry you, thoughts about things you want or don't want. The moment you attempt to pay attention to your breath or to the sound of the wind in the trees, you will meet your mind. And your mind is the most rambling,

• 9:51Sam Harris?

  chaotic, needling, insulting, insufferable person you will ever meet. It's like having some maniac walk through the front door of your house and follow you from room to room and refuse to stop talking. And this happens every day of your life.

• 10:14Sam Harris?

  It is possible to get him to stop talking for brief periods of time, and that can come with greater concentration in meditation. It's possible to pay attention to the breath, for instance, and to be so focused on it that thoughts no longer arise. And this can be an extremely pleasant experience when it happens, but it's a temporary experience. Real relief comes when we recognize thoughts for what they are: mere appearances in consciousness, images, bits of language. The fact that a thought has arisen does not give it a necessary claim upon your life.

• 10:59Sam Harris?

  It need not have any implications, psychological or otherwise. Of course, you'll continue to think and to be moved to act by thoughts, but meditation gives you a choice. Do you really want to follow this next thought wherever it leads? Almost everything you experience is the product of thought. Just look around you at the evidence of civilization. Look at how the natural world has been pruned and modified. Thought is almost everything. It's science, art, religion, philosophy, technology,

• 11:42Sam Harris?

  every social pathology: racism, tribal hatred, corporate greed. All of human activity, from the most constructive, like finding a cure for a disease like smallpox, to the most destructive, like weaponizing a disease like smallpox, is the product of what human beings like ourselves think.

• 12:08Sam Harris?

  Look around you at all the objects and materials that you use on a daily basis, and upon which you now depend for your survival. If civilization were to end tomorrow, could you produce any of these things? If you were alone in the world, in the state of nature, how long would it take for you to produce a single needle and thread? Would a lifetime be enough? Now imagine what it would take to produce a smartphone. What is the minimum number of people required to move from taking the raw materials out of the earth and refining them into glass and plastic and electronic components,

• 12:52Sam Harris?

  and then developing the principles of computation and memory storage necessary to build a smartphone? Almost everything around us is pregnant with human knowledge. Human knowledge is literally built into the walls of your house and into your clothing. No single person knows how to produce most of what we depend on. This knowledge is distributed. We are all living in an ever-expanding and deepening system of ideas. This is the power of thought. But within our own minds, we tend to live under a kind of tyranny of thinking. And we have a false sense that there's a thinker

• 13:36Sam Harris?

  in addition to thoughts themselves. You may feel that you are the thinker using thoughts or authoring them. But the self is a construct of thought. The feeling of self is what it feels like to be thinking in each moment without recognizing the arising of the next thought. And one would be very hard-pressed to think of a source of suffering that isn't the direct product of this process. Certainly, everything coming from our relationships and careers and concerns about the past and future is mediated by thought. Even our response to pain, direct, physical pain,

• 14:19Sam Harris?

  is largely the product of how we think about it. Pain is one thing. Suffering is another.

• 14:27Sam Harris?

  The resistance we feel, the anxiety, the fear of how things will hurt in the next moment, this too is the product of thought. Of course, getting rid of thought is not an option. The only way to plan for the future, the only way to act intelligently in response to present challenges is, in the general case, to think things through, but use suffering itself as a kind of alarm clock. And this is where meditation can be useful. Meditation gives you an ability to respond to the alarm. If you are suffering, you are lost in thought. And until you learn a practice like mindfulness, there is no alternative.

• 15:12Sam Harris?

  You live at the whim of the next sentence or image that appears in your mind. Once you understand how to meditate, however, once you can pay attention to this automaticity, then you have a choice. So when you're suffering, just notice the present thought. Where is it? What is it? What happens to it when you pay attention? And how is it that your suffering can continue in the next moment when the present thought has disappeared? There are many ways we use the term "self", and not all of these selves are illusory.

• 15:57Sam Harris?

  I can talk about myself in terms of my personal history or with respect to my location as a body in physical space. I can think of myself in various social roles, as a writer, or as a father, or as a customer in a store. And there's nothing wrong with thinking about ourselves in these terms. Most of this is unavoidable. There is, however, one sense of self that is confusing and that produces a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering for us. And happily, this sense of self can be dispelled through meditation. It can be discovered to be illusory through meditation. And this self is the feeling in each moment

• 16:41Sam Harris?

  that we are subjects internal to our bodies, the feeling of being inside our heads.

• 16:49Sam Harris?

  It's almost as though we feel that we're passengers in our bodies. And it's this feeling that is also referred to as the ego. If you're like most people, what you are calling "I" is this feeling of being the internal subject of your experience. "I" does not refer merely to the body, and it certainly doesn't refer to the totality of experience. "I" appears to be the center of experience. It's that which is appropriating experience. And this feeling that we call "I" is itself the product of thought. Having an ego is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking.

• 17:34Sam Harris?

  It's the feeling of being identified with thought. Imagine that you run into someone you know and like a lot. And when they see you, rather than smile as they usually would, they look very unhappy. And the first words out of their mouth is, "I can't believe you would do that." Now, assume you have no idea what they're talking about. So your first thought is, "What? What did I do?" Now imagine your friend looks at you with real mistrust and says, "Seriously?" And all you can think at that moment is, "What? What did I do? What are you talking about?" Now, these are just thoughts. And yet, they completely subsume you.

• 18:18Sam Harris?

  They seem to be what you are in each moment of their arising. You have no perspective on them. There's no space around them. Your consciousness has been almost entirely reduced to a string of sentences and to the feeling of urgency that created them and which they create in turn. But how could you actually be a thought? Okay, how could consciousness be trimmed down to a sentence?

• 18:49Sam Harris?

  Whatever their content, thoughts vanish almost the instant they appear. They're like sounds, or sensations in the body. How could this next thought, however urgent, define consciousness at all? Consciousness is the prior condition of its horizon. It's this state of being identified with thought, of there being no space, no perspective, where each thought is just you. And what, what did I do? Thoughts are arising in each moment, and you don't even know that you're thinking. It's like dreaming when you're asleep, and you have no idea that you're dreaming.

• 19:31Sam Harris?

  That experience of full capture by the contents of consciousness is the ego. It is the self that is the target of deconstruction by the practice of meditation. And this self is a burden, even when things seem to be going well. Consider the feeling of pride. Okay, let's say you've just done something great, and you've been praised for it in high places. How good does that feel? You know the feeling. Some part of your mind is just lapping it up with its little cat's tongue. But this is the same part of you that is always poised to be miserable.

• 20:13Sam Harris?

  This is the part of you that's always comparing yourself to other people. This part of you, even when it's riding along at full gallop, can be unhorsed with a single sentence, or even a glance. The rewards of the ego are not good enough. And again, we're just talking about patterns of thoughts, one thought following the next. And the selflessness that can be realized through meditation is not a deep feature of consciousness. It's right on the surface. And yet, people can meditate for years without recognizing it. How can something be right on the surface and yet be difficult to see? Well, consider the optic blind spot by analogy.

• 20:56Sam Harris?

  You've probably been shown this in school, where you close one eye and then stare at a fixation point on a piece of paper. And then you're asked to notice that a dot in the periphery of your visual field disappears when you're just the right distance from the paper. If you close one eye now, there's certainly something in your visual field that falls into your blind spot, and yet you don't notice it. And surely, most people in human history have been totally unaware that the blind spot even exists. And many of us who know about it go for decades without thinking about it, much less noticing it. The absence of the self is also there to be noticed. As with the blind spot, the evidence for it is not far away or deep within.

• 21:41Sam Harris?

  It's almost too close to be observed. And for most people, experiencing the absence of self requires considerable training, and that's what we're doing here. It is possible to notice that consciousness, that in you which is aware of your experience in this moment, does not feel like a self. It does not feel like I. Rather, whatever feels like I is itself another appearance in consciousness. Whatever you can feel is being known by this prior condition, which we're calling consciousness or awareness.

• 22:22Sam Harris?

  Now, how can we know that the conventional sense of self is an illusion? Well, the most compelling way is to get yourself in a position to really look for it, and then find it absent. And that's the point of meditation. When you really look for this thing that feels like I, it vanishes. And this is compelling in the same way that the disappearance of any illusion is compelling. You thought something was there, but upon closer inspection, you can see that it isn't. In this case, you can feel and know that it isn't. There's a general intellectual and epistemic principle at work here.

• 23:06Sam Harris?

  Whatever is there when you're paying the closest attention stands a better chance of being real than what seems to be there when you're not paying attention.

• 23:15Sam Harris?

  What doesn't survive scrutiny cannot be real. Now, as you get further in the practice of meditation, you will discover that there is no thinker apart from your thoughts. There's no one producing these thoughts, and there's no one receiving them. There's just consciousness and its contents as a matter of experience. There's no one who's choosing the next thing you do. Thought and intention and choice just arise and become effective or not based on prior causes and conditions. The feeling that you are in the driver's seat, able to pick and choose among thoughts,

• 23:57Sam Harris?

  is itself a thought that has gone unrecognized. This feeling of being a self that can pick and choose is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking.

• 24:19Sam Harris?

  Again, those are selections from some lessons in the Waking Up app. You can find out more at wakingup.com. And the new year is off to quite a start, and I'm wishing you all much happiness in it, wherever you can find it.