Sam Harris on Finding the Missing Person That Was Never Lost: The Real Goal of Meditation
What Does “You Are Not Your Thoughts” Actually Mean?
I’m sure you’ve heard this saying in relation to meditation as its been thrown around quite a bit now.
Fundamentally, it’s correct, you are not your thoughts. But does that saying really demystify anything about meditation for you? My guess is no.
Sam Harris, New York Times Best-Selling author, Neuroscientist and founder of the Waking Up meditation app, explains that this idea that you are not your thoughts means your thoughts have no real stickiness to them - they don’t determine anything about you for having them.
Thoughts don’t determine anything about who you are just like a momentary pain in your knee does not determine what kind of a person you are.
They just arise on their own and you experience them and they fall away.
Harris also suggests that meditation reveals that what you call “you” - who you believe to be having the thought - is not really there.
If that raised your eyebrows, keep reading.
The Search Party
In the episode of the Huberman Lab, Andrew Huberman’s podcast, where Harris is brought on as a guest to discuss meditation, Sam delivers a clear-cutting analogous story to what the practice reveals to us.
“There was a tourist bus in Northern Europe and it had about 30 people on it. They went to a rest stop and everybody got off the bus, shopped and had lunch. An Asian woman that was a passenger changed her clothing and then they all got back on the bus (the relevance of her being asian was that there were language barriers that explained what later happened).
Everyone gets back on the bus and someone points out to the driver “Hey, there was an asian woman on the bus that hasn’t come back yet”.
This posed a problem so everyone was waiting for this person’s return but really the woman was on the bus, she had just changed her clothing and went unrecognized by her fellow travelers. Everyone starts to get concerned as the tourist doesn’t show up so they start looking for her and a search party is formed.
Because of whatever language barrier, it takes a second before the asian woman eventually hears there is a missing tourist and joins the search party. Her own search party. This goes on into the night.
At some point along the way, this tourist realizes that she is the object of this search and the problem is solved. But the problem is not solved by the logic that the seeker is expected. It’s not true to say that the missing tourist was found in the way that was expected because the missing tourist was never lost.
So, what happens at the moment she realizes that everyone is looking for her? The search isn’t consummated in the way that is implied by the logic of everyone’s use of attention and yet the problem evaporates. There’s something deeply analogous about that story and the meditative journey.“
A Search Formed in Error
I’ve broken it up here, but Sam further describes how the story of this troubled tourist draws a parallel to the meditative journey and the experienced realization that is commonly referred to as enlightenment:
“Not talking about the physical and mental benefits that come along the way. It’s on this point of looking for the self and not finding it. There is this sense that “Ok the self is here and it’s a problem”.
“It is the string upon which all of my conscious states, mostly unhappy ones, are strung. It is the thing that is at the center of my anxiety. It’s the thing that I don’t feel good about. It’s the thing that when criticized I let implode.”
“The sense is we start out far away from the goal here. I start out with my problem. I can feel my problem, I feel that I am distracted or easily distractible. I’m not as confident as I want to be. I’m searching for an answer.”
This is what the confused tourist feels like in her own search party. Looking for someone that is not missing to begin with. The thing that is being looked for is actually right on the surface.
Harris describes that meditation “is the experiment you have to perform in order to get ready to recognize that the search party was formed in error essentially. The problem you are trying to solve with this practice evaporates in a similar way. You actually don’t get there in the way that you’re hoping for…You sort of fall out the bottom of this thing in an unexpected way.”
Yes, there are a myriad of benefits - increased focus, reduced anxiety etc. - that everyone sells “why you should start meditating” with. Though, Sam is getting at the deeper “benefit” here: not being captured by the discursive thought of the self that is harder to recognize.
How Can You Implement This for Yourself?
Well, first things first would be to find a time slot in your day that you can set as your routine time for meditation: first thing when you wake up, after lunch, before bed - whatever works for you.
Then you just start. Start with 1 - 5 minutes a day. Then work that up to 10 - 20 minutes a day.
It’s not about how long you meditate for, the key here at the beginning is repetition. What are you repeating? You repeatedly recognize when you are lost in thought but you allow yourself to be.
When you notice you have been swept away by thought, you recognize thoughts and the state of your mind almost as if you’re recognizing the weather: “Huh, busy mind today”.
You can’t do anything to change the weather - you have to allow it to be as it is.
You don’t get upset that it’s raining. If you start getting upset that it’s raining, you’re adding pain to a neutral stimulus of consciousness.
Allow thoughts to come and go as they please. Allow your mind to be busy on a particular day that you sit down to practice. Allow emotions to be there when you sit down to practice.
When you allow them to be there, you can step back and notice them from a distance. You’re no longer fighting them and tangling yourself up in them in the process.
You don’t need to add resistance to negative thought. Doing so would actually only give them more strength because of your identification with them. Doing so would be using the wrong type of force - a hammer for a situation that requires a scissor.
Be patient with yourself. Allow yourself to be where you are in your self-development journey while moving forward. Do not add resistance to your improvement by getting angry at where you are. That’ll only slow you down.
Take the path of least resistance, but remember, the path of no resistance is nonexistent.
I hope this helped you in some way.
- A Ripple in Mind
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