Sam Harris
American neuroscientist, philosopher, and meditation teacher, one of the most influential voices on contemplative practice for the secular, scientifically-minded reader of the early twenty-first century. Born in 1967 in Los Angeles, he holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA and has trained in Theravada Vipassana, Tibetan Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta with teachers including Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Poonja-ji. His 2014 book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion and the meditation app of the same name have introduced contemplative practice — particularly the recognition of selflessness — to a generation of readers who would never enter a Buddhist monastery or a yoga studio. His earlier books, including The End of Faith and Free Will, established him as a public intellectual on consciousness, ethics, and the contemplative dimensions of human experience.
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Quotes by Sam Harris
103 quotes“Practice for short durations many times. The practice is the recognition.”
“Time disappears in the depth of meditation.”
“In the deepest meditation, even the meditator vanishes.”
“Awareness is luminous and empty.”
“The self is a kind of cognitive cramp. Mindfulness eases the cramp.”
“There is no homunculus inside your head observing the world.”
“Thinking is happening. There is no thinker.”
“Look directly at consciousness. The looker is not found.”
“In the moment of recognition, the search ends.”
“To be free of self is to be free of suffering.”
“Contemplative practice is the most rigorous science of consciousness.”
“You can find what is liberating in your own mind right now.”
“Most of meditation is recognizing distraction.”
“Each moment of distraction is also a moment of awakening.”
“The simplest meditation: notice you are thinking, and return to the breath.”
“Practice patience with the practice.”
“What is meditation pointing to? The recognition of awareness as you are.”
“The hard problem of consciousness is the only hard problem.”
“Even the sense of being inside your head is an appearance.”
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