This book was interesting. I like Sam Harris’ Podcast because he talks with intellectuals of different kinds about the uncontrollable nature of our thinking, our place in the community and how science could help along the way.
The most interesting fact for me was `callosotomy`. Doctors did split the hemispheres in the brain in an attempt to heal or lessen the effect of spasms or seizures. Doing that they soon realized that the two hemispheres began to form separate identities.
This fact was mind-blowing. Since each of the two hemispheres cross-control one side of the body and register one side of the bodies perceptive inputs like the eyes (think of Descartes), the scientist could show different things to either side of the brain and the other side would not have noticed it.
This suggests that we may inhabit multiple `selves` which are forming the resulting selve to alternating degrees.
Sam Harris suggests that we have less control over our thought than most of us want to admit. But by being mindful of this very fact we may be able to regain some of that control back.
Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience, it is the act of experiencing more clearly.
Studies have shown that 50 percent of our waking life our mind is wandering. In that time the `default-mode network` (a specific region of our brain) is more active. This region seems to be responsible for our tendency to think about andjudge ourselves, which leads to the perception of “I”, the single, thinking entity.
Meditation, can lessen the activity in the DMN up to the point that experienced meditators can weaken the activity even when they are not meditating.
How to approach meditation from different Buddhist schools:
- gradual approach
- focus on “my” breathing until the “I” dissolves and you realize there is no self
- sudden realization
- begin already assuming the self is an illusion and the self does not exist
Sam Harris seems to favor the latter.
The second half of the book talks about “spirituality”. It explains that a multitude of spiritual experiences are common to all types of believers, as well as non-believers. Thus it must be a concept non-specific to religion.
Furthermore Harris describes Eastern Religions as empirical at their core as they are constantly concerned with experience and observation. As an atheist, I like this way of thinking.
As manuals for contemplative understanding, the Bible and the Koran are worse than useless.
The rest of the book talks about how to avoid bad gurus and how drugs can be part of your spiritual journey. Especially the part about bad gurus, though entertaining, feels more like a rant than some practical contemplation.
All in all, I liked the book.
Since I believe that we are the inevitable product of all the input we get from our surroundings, we have to control the receptivity for trash information, habitual thinking and automatism in our life to find spirituality in our life. Meditation can help taming a wandering mind that all too happily rides the wave of the default-mode network!