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“In the recognition of awareness, you have not become someone new. You have ceased pretending.”
“What is constant in your experience? Awareness.”
“Without awareness, no experience. With awareness, everything.”
“In every breath, the practice is renewed.”
“There is nothing wrong with the present moment unless you think there is.”
“To meditate is to investigate. The mind is the laboratory.”
“You are not lost. You are not far from awareness. You are awareness.”
“The contemplative life is the examined life, finally.”
“There is freedom that does not depend on circumstance. Recognize it.”
“Even in sleep, awareness is. Recognize this in waking.”
“All beings want to be free of suffering. Many do not know they already are.”
“Generosity, ethics, patience — these support the contemplative life.”
“The practice is simple. It is also profound. Both at once.”
“Each meditation begins where the last left off. There is no progress to lose.”
“The mind in meditation does not become quieter. It becomes more obvious.”
“In meditation, the noise becomes the practice.”
“Compassion is the natural overflow of selflessness.”
“You cannot reason your way to awakening. You can only look.”
“The recognition is in the looking, not the conclusion.”
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