It strips away a lot of the "woo woo" kooky stuff and clearly explains what meditation really "is". I just finished re-reading it, and must have highlighted every other sentence.
For people interested in what meditation really "is," at least from a Buddhist perspective, Ven. Thanissaro is worth a look. Among his many excellent books is Right Mindfulness: Memory & Ardency on the Buddhist Path
> For the past several decades, a growing flood of books, articles, and teachings has advanced theories about the practice of mindfulness which are highly questionable and—for anyone hoping to realize the end of suffering—seriously misleading. The main aim of this book is to show that the practice of mindfulness is most fruitful when informed by the Buddha’s own definition of right mindfulness and his explanations of its role on the path.
What I expect to be in a similar vain is "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion".
While I enjoyed reading it and it helped me make sense of a lot of things related to meditation, mindfulness and spirituality in general, I can't say I felt every other sentence was highlight worthy.
The chapter on spiritual frauds was however very enloghtening.
It has helped me attain the deepest level of meditative state, where I am almost aware of my consciousness as a separate process from the constant sensory input. Becoming an observer, empty-head.
On another level, I've found it very settling in times of emotional turmoil.
I did have a near panic attack from the book when he makes somewhat of a case that both hemispheres of our brains might be independently conscious, with one permanently silenced as control of the body is held by the active one that controls our body. A prisoner in someone else's body, literally, with no way to interact with the world. It is pure physiological horror. But alas I cannot do anything about (other than try to talk to that other entity and see if it can trigger some sort of response?) so no use getting worked up? The world is full of day-to-day cruelty and it's not my fault.
Harris's point is that there are only speech centres on one side of the brain. Both hemispheres have sensory and motor cortices and control of half the body, so the sense in which the right hemisphere is silenced/held prisoner is that it can't generate or understand speech.
If "you" are setting out to converse with the neighbouring regions of your brain, which in my experience is a worthwhile endeavour that does pay off, it'll have to be through visualisations, symbols, images, daydreams, imaginings.
Like any adult language-learning, there are a bunch of practice exercises before you're ready to converse in vivo. As a way in for you: first get a bunch of spare attention through your meditative practice. Then use it to work on visualisation of familiar places like your house/neighbourhood until you can move around fluently. Repeat with a request like "find something red" and notice when a part separate from your monologue locates it without effort/searching. Then start making broader requests for imaginary landscapes or situations and see what replies you get. Be a kind, accepting, fearless conversation partner. Look for surprise and speed as markers of authentic responses from elsewhere than your monologue.
This is a great reply, thank you. I thought Harris was also explaining that full motor control remains by "me" until the corpus callosum is severed. Hence patients being unaware that their other hand is writing notes.
Do you have any further reading or information on communicating with the other hemisphere?
Gunaratana is much more practically oriented than Harris: Here's how you do it, here's what you might experience, here are some problems and potential approaches to them. It also steers clear of cynicism and hostility.
Not OP but as an atheist for me spiritualism was made concrete when after a meditation session I intuitively knew and felt that myself and the world were the same. I watched at some familiar trees through my windows and felt I and them were the same and actually existed. This sensation brought me great joy and calmness. And then it passed, I was myself again, and the world was again separate from me.
This was some two decades ago. I've never felt anything like that after that, but the memory of the sensation is still very strong.
No drugs. Just the most basic 'lie-down-relaxed-and-watch-at-a-dot' exercise. And wham.
It was pretty cool. I was an adolescent back then and I had decided several years before that logically religion was total BS. Had I been religious I'm sure I would have interpreted my experience as being in direct communion with God. But, I interpreted it as a neurological response to my meditation - which did not make the experience any less spiritual.
The experience did not reveal anything new to me, but it made me feel the truth that we all are one and connected, philosophically speaking.
Feeling is something purely logical discourse seldom provides. This experience was pure feeling. Like, I intuitively feel my legs are part of me. I felt the whole world was part of me. Now, this is at the same time true - or - false. We are made of the same atoms and are interconnected through our actions and the laws of physics. At the same time, it's a bit silly to describe oneself extending beyond ones body. So, one can choose was I enlightened by a fundamental truth or was I just a bit silly after a brief session of neurohacking.
Well, people used to interpret experiences with hallucinogenic substances as religious/spiritual (some still do). Would you say that your own experience fundamentally differs? Obviously you didn't ingest chemicals but other than that, is the end result substantially different?
The original question, to which I answered, was, that what does non-religious spirituality mean? I described what a spiritual experience felt like to me.
So, I suppose the key here is the personal experience.
I'm sure there are a lot of ways people can have deep spiritual experiences without them interpreting it as communicating with divine forces.
I didn't mean to try to belittle you experience in any way.
The one thing I am tying to validate / invalidate is weather "spiritual" as used by non religious people, is mere hacking of our delicate physical and chemical machinery.
Uh, no, I didn't understand it as belitteling. I think you raised a fair point in the context of this discussion. I don't think we have very good syntax yet to discuss these things.
I don't know, but I have a gut feeling the spiritual awe one gets from one religious sacrament or another and getting it through other means are the same thing.
Effectively, the way I see it, religions claim something that is universal and publicly available as under their domain. It's like a guy came and wanted to resell the air you breath back at you.
Similarly I feel drug afficionados are sometimes overselling their hobby as the one key to the mysteries of the universe.
I don't mind if someone is religious or likes to do drugs. What I don't like, is that one or another claims something that can gained by other means as belonging to their dominion.
The major religions are especially intransigent and arrogant about this in their creed - claiming things that belong to all men and women to belong only to one sect or another - thus poisoning themselves doubly by first trying to fool those outside of their creed, and then being intellectually dishonest of their own experiences.
> The one thing I am tying to validate / invalidate is weather "spiritual" as used by non religious people, is mere hacking of our delicate physical and chemical machinery.
It really is, if our minds are entirely a manifestation of the brain.
We all carry around a default metaphysics -- a deep belief structure about the nature of reality. It is possible to transcend these beliefs in a way that allows you to grok (not just understand) that they're not supported in the way we normally assume. That transcendence is often accompanied by an overwhelming gratitude, joy, awe, and wonder that are normally inaccessible.
Of course, our belief structures almost always come rushing right back, and so we interpret the experience in terms of our metaphysics ("oh, it was just brain chemicals"), but part of us understands the sense in which this is just a story.
Do you think humans are exclusively entitled to "grok"? Can ants transcend as well or was reallity waiting for us to come along and access the normally inaccessible?
I honestly have no idea whether ants are conscious let alone can become enlightened. I try to treat them well but I'm not planning on teaching them to meditate any time soon :)
During "the inaccessible," assumptions about an objective or pre-existing reality fall apart as well. From within the standard materialist metaphysics it seems rather unlikely that we're special (or that meditation even does anything "transcendent" besides jiggling around some neurotransmitters).
Its basically about why spiritual things are good for you, and how the feelings you experience during such spiritual things do not need religious / supernatural explanations.
It's different from psychology as it doesn't try to explain / cure things like child development, depression, bipolar disorders or most of the other multitude of subjects that psychology works with.
I would say its an inquiry into the nature of your conscious experience, using meditation. Most meditation seems tied up with religion to greater or lesses extents. Sam Harris tries to do away with that.
Some people have already posted his insight meditation which is worth trying. (Maybe try a bit of more basic breathing meditation first so you realize how distracted you are getting with your thoughts before trying - you will likely get a lot more out of it if you can keep your mind from jumping around).
I would say the difference with psychology is that psychology is based on external observations and predictions, while "spirituality" is your own internal experience. They are completely different.
I’m no expert on meditation, but I read/listened to several teachers until I found a few that would explain it without the “woo woo”.
A conclusion I came to about how it is taught is that besides some teachers being brought up on woo woo, many seem hesitant to teach it in direct, clear terms because understanding what it is creates goals in your mind and goal-directed thinking is counterproductive to the process.
So, the teacher being vague and woo-woo works out great for many students. But, for me, and I expect many people here, it prevented me from even getting started. Now that I have what I think is an understanding of the goals, I’m happy to meditate with a limp rather than not at all.
> goal-directed thinking is counterproductive to the process
This may be a Western influence. Not exactly a corruption, but a tendency to emphasize the "goalless goal" aspects of spiritual practice, because they align with the German Romantic philosophical strains which underlie most of the "woo" between the Enlightenment and modern contact with Buddhism.
It's worth keeping in mind that the Buddha's seminal talk was about ending suffering. It's hard to get more goal-oriented than that. And while chasing after a goal is a mild form suffering in its own right, it's hardly the right place to start.
Thanissaro has a great book with an extended argument about this, surveying the German Romantic foundations of Western "woo" and their influence on Western teaching of Buddhism, Buddhist Romanticism.
> An in-depth study of the pervasive influence of early Romantic thought in shaping the way Buddhism is taught in the West, and of the practical consequences of following the Romantics rather than the Buddha in approaching the problem of suffering and stress.
> Many Westerners, when new to Buddhism, are struck by the uncanny familiarity of what seem to be its central concepts: interconnectedness, wholeness, ego-transcendence. But what they may not realize is that the concepts sound familiar because they are familiar. To a large extent, they come not from the Buddha's teachings but from the Dharma gate of Western psychology, through which the Buddha's words have been filtered. They draw less from the root sources of the Dharma than from their own hidden roots in Western culture: the thought of the German Romantics.
Another highly relevant essay of his for goal-related practice is "The Agendas of Mindfulness"
> ...as described in the Pali texts, meditation is a very pro-active process. It has an agenda and works actively to bring it about
I have also enjoyed "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Batchelor. It breaks down which parts of buddhism are socio-cultural concepts inherited from the cultures where it developed and what is the core wisdom.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XF1LKW/
It strips away a lot of the "woo woo" kooky stuff and clearly explains what meditation really "is". I just finished re-reading it, and must have highlighted every other sentence.