Sam Harris

Pat_Adducci - 31 October 2007 01:07 AM

burt - 30 October 2007 11:43 PM

.... though he did encounter what seemed like a bit of willful misunderstandin’ from the natives.

Didn’t seem that way to me. To me it looked like ‘this town ain’t big enough for two Professors.’
But I think it is, plenty big enough with lots of room to grow. Or be sarcastic or whatever.

Just wait for High Noon! 

Salt Creek - 31 October 2007 02:01 AM

Pat_Adducci - 31 October 2007 01:07 AM

plenty big enough with lots of room to grow

Why worry about how much room there is unless you wish to inject a materialist bias?

Or be sarcastic or whatever.

Me, sarcastic? Say it ain’t so. I just think it’s hilarious to watch two fruity woo-woo artists stand toe to toe and bark at each other about whose Third Eye is bigger. Normally, it’s about the Third Leg, no?

Ah, the 3rd leg, Shiva lingam (Indiana Jones theme rises to creshendo).  Just, wait till we get around to Tantrum, whoops, I mean Tantra. 

PROFESSORS!!!

Now I am insulted!

Antony U. - 22 October 2007 10:19 PM

Now, having started meditating (using Kabat-Zinn’s CDs as a guide), I am very interested in finding a rational (non-religious / contemplative science) meditation coach and / or community…one that is not associated with the dogma of faith.

Try to find a therapist with a group teaching Dialetical Behavioral Therapy.

All,

I wanted to take the time to thank-you all for your insight and thoughts related to my questions.

Prompted by your responses I’ve done some more research and located what appears to be quite an active nexus of scientists and members of the Buddhist traditions who have been actively defining and exploring Contemplative Science for about 20 years.

For those interested I would recommend:

- Alan Wallace’s talk to the folks at Google about the history of the emergence of Contemplative Science and the adjustment in view to accept personal experience as valid science.

- The Mind and Life Institute which is the organization that various well known eminent Western Scientists (among the ones I knew of include: Daniel Goleman of EQ fame, John Kabat-Zinn of Mindfulness for Stress Reduction, and Alan Wallace of all round mutli-talentness) and the Dalai Lama.

- Alan Wallace’s research centre, the The Santa Barbra Institute has more details of some of the active contemplative science research programs launched from the Mind and Life conference series and sponsored in part by the Dalai Lama.  Some of these programs are directly at specifically answering the question I was asking… and they appear to be making good progress.

- The Mind and Life Institute has started programs of meditation for Scientists, hosted by the Insight Meditation Society, to help them personally experience meditation.  Sam Harris attended one (perhaps the first) of these sessions in early 2006 and wrote about it in this article in the Huffington Post. 

In addition I ran across a whole bunch of interesting books…which I will (slowly!) read and digest:

- Contemplative science : where Buddhism and neuroscience converge / by Wallace, B. Alan.

- Balancing the mind : a Tibetan Buddhist approach to refining attention / by Wallace, B. Alan.

- Genuine happiness : meditation as the path to fulfillment /
by Wallace, B. Alan.

- Healing emotions : conversations with the Dalai Lama on mindfulness, emotions, and health /
edited by Daniel Goleman

- The meditative mind : the varieties of meditative experience / by Goleman, Daniel.

Anyhow I wanted to share…and I am looking forward to what Alan Wallace called “a revolution” in human consciousness (which he likened to Copernicus/Newton in Physics and Darwin in Biology) which he hopes will occur as a result of all this research. (I hope I’m quoting correctly at least the spirit of what he said to the Google folks).

In the meantime… as several of you have gently observed…its time to practice!

Warm regards
Antony U.

Antony U. - 03 November 2007 05:25 AM

- The Mind and Life Institute which is the organization that various well known eminent Western Scientists (among the ones I knew of include: Daniel Goleman of EQ fame, John Kabat-Zinn of Mindfulness for Stress Reduction, and Alan Wallace of all round mutli-talentness) and the Dalai Lama.

Shows the effect of bracket awareness, a friend of mine has been associated with Mind & Life for some time (watch out for the politics there).  She did her Ph.D. in education on effects of Buddhist and other meditation practices for teachers (stress reduction, etc.). I should have thought of that when you asked for recommendations. 

Anthony,

Good luck on the path. Practicing at home is only the beginning, if you want to reach deeper states of concentration you will eventually have to do retreats. Sitting and walking meditation all day long with almost complete silence for 9-10 days will greatly improve your practice. Just be aware that books don’t prepare you for the difficulties that will inevitably show up, boredom, sleepiness, restlessness and physical pain, especially at the beginning. However you are headed into territory where not a lot of people have the interest or the fortitude to go. Dharma.org is good place to start.