Sam Harris: Mindfulness is Powerful, But Keep Religion Out of It | Big Think
Sam Harris: Mindfulness is Powerful, But Keep Religion Out of It
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Sam Harris says that stress-reductive benefits of meditation are rather trivial compared to the insights one can discover about the nature of the self. And though such mindfulness practices can and should be approached through a secular lens, the business of religion is all too often a forced and unnecessary part of the parcel.
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SAM HARRIS:
Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction.
Mr. Harris’ writing has been published in over ten languages. He and his work have been discussed in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, Scientific American, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Nature, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.
Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and holds a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, where he studied the neural basis of belief with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He is also a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Sam Harris: Mindfulness is very much in vogue at this moment as many of you probably know. And it’s often taught as though it were a glorified version of an executive stress ball. It’s a tool you want in your tool kit. It prepares you emotionally to go into a new experience with a positive attitude and you know you’re not hauling around baggage from the past. And that’s true. Actually having focus and having your mind in the present moment is a little bit of a superpower in situations that we’re all in from day to day. But that actually undervalues what mindfulness really is and its true potential. It’s more like the large hadron collider in that it’s a real tool for making some fundamental discoveries about the nature of the mind. And one of these discoveries is that the sense of self that we all carry around from day to day is an illusion. And cutting through that illusion I think is actually more important than stress reduction or any of the other conventional benefits that are accurately ascribed to mindfulness.
The enemy of mindfulness and really of any meditation practice is being lost in thought, is to be thinking without knowing that you’re thinking. Now the problem is not thoughts themselves. We need to think. We need to think to do almost anything that makes us human – to reason, to plan, to have social relationships, to do science. Thinking is indispensable to us but most of us spend every moment of our waking lives thinking without knowing that we’re thinking. And this automaticity is a kind of scrim thrown over at the present moment through which we view everything. And it’s distorting of our lives. It’s distorting of our emotions. It engineers our unhappiness in every moment because most of what we think is quite unpleasant. We’re judging ourselves, we’re judging others, we’re worrying about the future, we’re regretting the past, we’re at war with our experience in subtle or coarse ways. And much of this self-talk is unpleasant and diminishing our happiness in every moment. And so meditation is a tool for cutting through that.
It’s interrupting this continuous conversation we’re having with ourselves. So that is – that in and of itself is beneficial. But there are features of our experience that we don’t notice when we’re lost in thought. So, for instance, every experience you’ve ever had, every emotion, the anger you felt yesterday or a year ago isn’t here anymore. It arises and it passes away. And if it comes back in the present moment by virtue of your thinking about it again, it will subside again when you’re no longer thinking about it. Now this is something that people tend not to notice because we rather than merely feel an emotion like anger, we spend our time thinking of all the reasons why we have every right to be angry. And so the conversation keeps this emotion in play for much, much longer than its natural half-life. And if you’re able, through mindfulness to interrupt this conversation and simply witness the feeling of anger as it arises you’ll find that you can’t be angry for more than a few moments at a time. If you think you can be angry for a day or even an hour without continually manufacturing this emotion by thinking without knowing that you’re thinking, you’re mistaken. And this is something…
Read the full transcript at https://bigthink.com/videos/sam-harris-on-secular-meditation-2
@bigthink
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
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@BirdwingASMR
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Well, personally I am a man of faith. That’s important to me. However, meditation outside of the a religious construct would be secular at best and other than prayer and thoughtfulness based on prayer, there are therapeutic options that don’t include anything religious so as to not “mix” in that bowl of new-ageism and spiritual if not underlying religious substance. It’s about for example, seeking therapy, help with depression, overthinking and so on without it being tied to what I mentioned. Not that faith in God and spiritual grounding isn’t important cause it is (especially for me).
@DLFfitness1
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Religion and woo-woo teachings made me fail at meditation. I kept thinking I wasn’t doing it correctly. In reality I was chasing something that wasn’t there.
Once I learned the correct way to use it, I was blown away.
Adding magical thinking makes everything an easier sell, because people have already been primed to believe nonsense.
@jamestagge3429
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
What an arrogant man. And with a one dimensional mindset. Your pathetic atheism is the ball and chain around your ankle. It figures that a man like you who is running away from any personal surrender to something bigger than himself would choose something as empty and philosophically vacuous as Buddhism. You should know that a measure of the coldness and emotional sterility always visible in atheists is visible in most aspects of your presentation.
I have seen your videos on your theories as to the nature of existence and found your views sophomoric. Idiotic questions such as “who created God” are part of the apparent architecture of your juvenile understanding of Christianity. The very science you attempt to bring to bear exposes you for a lost soul seeking vengeance against those not so small minded to have put himself above all by which his life is affected. With regard to things you said and theories you embrace…so from where Mr. Harris did material existence come? Was it eternal, going back infinitely, a popular view of your fellow travelers? Was it a bouncing universe? Imagine such a ridiculous view propping up the frantic psychological escape attempt of a man like you. That this theory is a material impossibility did not even occur to you. Anyone with any ability to think beyond his nose would know that if the iterations of the universe extended back along an infinite line and were expanding, stopping and contracting to expand again, we could not have arrived in the here and now, ever, yet we are here positing the notion. Nonsense such as a universe infinite in scope, also impossible for a singularity which it is claimed can be measured (quantifiable) expanding to about the size of a grapefruit (also quantifiable) when inflation ceased when it continued expanding but at a slower rate are the poor excuses you martial to try to validate your disbelief in God. Tell us Mr. Harris, what is it to expand but to increase progressively in value or measure by quantifiable increments? What then was that last measure of expansion before the very next one was infinity? And how would infinity be collapses back to the quantifiable that it might all expand again?
I could go on and on but I know you will not respond out of fear. I feel sorry for you and your wife, she a brilliant and beautiful woman (you are a lucky man in that regard) for you are truly lost and will pass in the horror of your lack of belief in God and in your despair that there is nothing more, as happens to many of your ilk when the time comes. And what of all the worthless, wasted lives of those whose path you follow like Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche etc.? The world is better without them and the damage they did.
And you…..?
@commercialaircraftsales
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
One must possess an extraordinary level of faith to accept the deception being presented. The only solace one can find lies within their own illusions, which is indeed a lamentable situation. However, there remains hope for you. By intertwining history with your assertions and concentrating on the scriptures, you may gain clarity regarding the truth. Begin by examining all archaeological evidence and external sources.
@suzannemckenzie7035
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
It's important to also know why one is angry and what one can do about it if anything.
@rickyfulbrook1026
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
I go to a Buddhist monastery twice a year. I'm not a Buddhist (anymore) it's just a nice place to meditate.
@keithshedron4351
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Yawn. Get rid of religion in order to bring about heaven on earth.
@squamish4244
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Sam studied under Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, one of the greatest Dzogchen masters of the last century, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, another great master. How he is an atheist after that, I don't know. But my father met an extraordinary Tibetan master, about ten times, one-on-one (which never happens, he has no idea how fortunate he is), a man who died the day and the hour he said he was going to, and my father is STILL an atheist.
My father doesn't want to face the implications of who he met and what that man was capable of – he demonstrated abilities beyond what should be possible. He doesn't even notice, now that he is in his 70s, how much he talks about the guy these days. IMO Sam is in massive denial of who he met and what he saw while he was training in India in the 1980s. Just as my father is.
@luizr.5599
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
My mindfulness practice has improved by leaving Buddhism aside.
@sharmaatul40
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
This the problem of people in large who have been brought up following and seeing abrahamic religions they see and perceive things through that lens and barely understand the difference between Religion, Panth, Dharma and unless you understand this very basic thing you are bound to fall for this misconception of looking at things as secular and communal which actually has to do with abrahamic religions.
@GomuGear4
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
This video made me an Emotion's Witness
@ThanhBenMansour
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
This sounds like pure rubbish.
@raneylee9617
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼
@bskilla4892
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Interesting. fMRIs and decades long research shows that meditation WITH religion is actually much more powerful. Go read up on scientific papers from Waldman, Newberg, et al. Newberg himself has some pretty amazing credentials doing his research at Penn State's medical school.
@John83118
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
I'm hooked on every word. I read a book with similar content, and I'm completely hooked on every word. "Reclaiming Connection: The Journey of a Digital Detox" by Joshua Ember
@CheesengChia-f4n
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
As long as mindfulness make life better then continue to practice for whatever reason.
@aihōchuu
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Calculus is powerful, but keep Maths out of it
@thomasdulaney1054
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
the American Constitution should be kept secular. I support strong separation of church
and state in public facilities.
@bondojoe8161
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Sam Harris, like many, makes the mistake of thinking that subjective morality is a good arbiter. Objective morality is the only realistic method of authority….and that comes from the acceptance of religion. Specifically, Christianity.
@ynzmadeleine
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Of course anyone can have a rich and meaningful spiritual life without holding to any religion, but we can have a spiritual life without faith.
Faith takes place in the absence of omniscience. And all our existence takes place in that absence. That's intellectually dishonest.
@keshavraman7739
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Funny though my religion has made me more mindful. And I can actually question it and take the teachings which help me in life with me.
@SanjayThakur-jy1rc
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Vipasana has no religion attached so Sam seem to have interacted with wrong kind of people .Physics was not discovered by Christian as no one discovers any subject as that already existed in different form .Christianity in only 2000 old religion while physics being practiced back in several thousand years in India alongwith several other subjects named differently lately .He should attend one vipasana session at Igatpuri and his views will change for life 🙏
@1sirteddles
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Keep religion out of it? Mindfulness came from Buddhism about 2,500 years ago. Also. you said the Self is an illusion. That's Buddhist theology/philosophy. I have meditated and the Self is real, and consciousness is real. Mindfulness can be practised without spirituality, but I have found that the Self wants spirituality. It gives the Self purpose for existing. So, what is Nirvana? How can bliss be if your consciousness ceases to exist and you are no longer a sentient entity. You are a great presenter and genuinely believe what you are saying, but I will give the rest of the videos a miss. Thanks for your time.
@thedocak7532
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
bruh, this language is pitiful. I will not be consumed by american thinking and have no personality. Life is only interesting, when there's personality and art. Not everybody can understand/appreciate scientific designs and diagrams.
@burnoutminion
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Religion is the solution to climate change we facing now.
@Project_Cy
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
I don't agree with everything he says about Buddhism, but Sam Harris is worth listening to. I think he missed the class on Buddhist emptiness and many sects of Buddhism and their beliefs, or lack thereof. You could also call this talk "Sam Discovers" Zen Buddhism," for instance. The Buddha was essentially saying all the things Sam said in this video, 2,500 years ago. Welcome to the party.
Many also argue that the new atheists have injected themselves as just another party in modern sectarianism. I say that as someone who shares their views, largely.
@supayanyt
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Just learn to give the damn credit to Buddhism. Christians discovered physics totally outside of religion and even opposing religion, Buddhism discovered and given the method of mindfulness as its core practice. Physics has no relation to Christianity but mindfulness is the core of Buddhism.
@noremac4807
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Very difficult when there is serious trauma, grief and loss , and when life security is disrupted
@terryankevmiller470
November 24, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Complete mindfulness comes with spirituality……. Sam…..they both exist together ❤
Comments are closed.