Sam Harris Revisits His Most Famous Speech - On Death & The Present Moment

I want to read a quote from that presentation that you gave on death in the present moment as a matter of conscious experience the reality of your life is always now and I think that this is a liberating truth about the nature of the human mind in fact I think there's probably nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world the past is a memory it's a thought arising in the present the future is merely anticipated it is another thought arising now what we truly have is this moment and this and we spend most of our Lives forgetting this truth refuting it fleeing it overlooking it and the horror is that we succeed we manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future and the future never arrives it is always now however much you feel you need to plan for the future to anticipate it to mitigate risks the reality of your life is now even when we think we're in the present moment we are in very subtle ways always looking over its shoulder anticipating what's coming next we're always solving a problem and it's possible to Simply drop your problem if only for a moment and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present you say that your mind is all you have just before that what does that mean reflecting on that statement now what what did you hope that people took away from it well it's there's this we've spoken about it a little bit already there's this fundamental truth that you never truly arrive if you're if your attention is always purposed toward looking for the next thing anticipating the next thing uh if even in the presence of that very thing that was the next thing and now it's now you are busy telling yourself a story about it you know you're if your engagement with it is mediated by thought in each moment and you can't actually make contact whether you can't you can't there's there's this dissatisfaction even in satisfaction right you get the thing you were longing for and you you have such a you're so distractible you're so you're so burdened by this automaticity of thought this conversation you're having with yourself that the present moment it isn't even Salient enough to you right and so it's it's a um most of us most of the time live in that kind of you know we get buffeted between the past and anticipating the future and thinking about the past and that flicker happens over even the present moment right I mean we're just we're just you know like I mean even in a conversation like this like I'm saying something if part of my attention is women have I gone on too long about this or like it like did that even make sense what was it there's part of me that is that is potentially talking to myself about the very conversation we're having now now that is all too normal everyone is in that position I mean people are people who are listening to us now are struggling to follow my train of thought as I speak one because I'm long-winded but two it's my speech is competing with speech that there is is occurring to them in their head right they're saying what's he talking about oh Jordan didn't say that what is he where does he get off talking about Jordan now and there's someone in their [ __ ] head who seems to be them but strangely not them because if they're the one talking and also listening why are they having that conversation in the first place right this is this people are looking over their own shoulder into the even when they're trying to seize the present with both hands right even if they take my advice in that quote and say okay I got to be all about that now right the future never arrives there's just now so let's enjoy the now what they will find is they lack the tools to really do that and so one tool again is something something like psychedelics right you take the requisite dose of LSD or psilocybin or MDMA again these are potentially very different experiences but they're they're what will happen under the Aegis of any of those compounds is very likely you will have a full collision with the present moment of A Sort that you have never had before if it's your first time on one of those drugs and all of a sudden the the your sensory experience and your concept even your conceptual experience will begin to unfold and you will realize there is just much more here than I than you realize right like it's like everything becomes a kind of miracle and the problem with that is that finding meaning in everything is crazy right you become the guy who's just like like you know if I'm staring at this microphone I'm so I come here stoned and I'm just like oh my God that microphone is just that you know that's not the guy you want on your podcast right so but it is possible it the it is possible to to fall into The Well of being such that the present Mo the present moment lacks for nothing right you're just you recognize that love what you meet what you really mean by love what you should mean by love is not this transactional thing that you get going with a specific person because of your shared history together and because of their qualities that you happen to like um it is actually a state of being that you can just plunge into and you recognize that this is the the point of life is to is to recognize this more and more right and so and love is one facet to the to this Jewel compassion is another just just awe you know is is another I mean it gets different shadings depending on the environment you put it in I mean it's like if you're in the presence of of human or animal suffering well then compassion is the thing that gets Amplified but in the sign in in real silence and in in a real undistracted collision with the present moment when you don't have this voice in your head diverting you uh or coming up from behind seeming to be you right like but what happens is people feel like a a separate self I mean here perhaps I should rewind for a second this here's the here's the starting point for 99.9 percent of humanity people feel like a self people feel like they're they're a subject in the middle of their experience right they feel like they're having an experience they feel like they're they're on the edge of experience in some sense they don't feel like they don't feel identical to experience right so I'm so and experience is you know your five sensory channels and your mind right so you've got you're seeing hearing smelling tasting touching thinking feeling emotions and you've got this whole cacophony of what it's like to be you in each moment and sometimes it's very very pleasant and sometimes sometimes it's very unpleasant and sometimes it's just you know uh normal and there's nothing really especially Salient about it um and the default sense is to feel like a self in the middle of that right and it's that it's that starting point that is actually the basis for all of our dissatisfaction and psychological suffering I mean that is the that is the knot that has to be untied to that that really allows for a recognition of what the mind is like prior to identification with thought and prior to this fee this this capture by this this automatic this reflexive seeking and not finding operation that we're we're constantly engaged with so um yeah it's possible to so yes on some level you know certainly spiritually speaking now is everything there really is just Consciousness in his contents in each moment right and and there's there's never a reason to wait to recognize that right um this isn't to disavow all the other projects we could have in human life that take some time to accomplish right I'm not saying you everyone should just become a monk or go to a cave and starve I mean like there are things that I like to do in the world and want to get done and I have projects but in each moment the question is what is available to attention uh and why do you suffer right and if you if you if you're going to ask yourself why do you suffer in each moment why why is this moment just a little crappy right why is it just not good enough why am I looking forward to this thing in an hour and I'm unable to locate a real ease of being now you know before this good thing happens um before this uncertainty gets resolved right before I hear from the doctor that I don't have the thing that I'm worried about what do you like all of these contingencies what's available now what you find is and you know meditation is the ultimate answer to this in my view you find is this this on the on the part of virtually everyone this basic incapacity to break the spell of identification with thought and just rest attention as Consciousness in the present moment and meditation is simply the act of doing that ultimately and there are many techniques that that can seem like something other in the beginning but ultimately if it works meditation is the ability to to look at this thing you thought was your ego whether you thought was yourself that you thought was the homunculus that was in the middle of your experience and not find it and not find it in a way that actually relieves you of the problem of egocentricity for that moment right it might only last in the beginning it might only last a moment right and then you'll be lost in thought again but that but the question is once you learn to meditate the question is always what do you do next and if you don't know how to meditate well you're just going to helplessly be thinking that thought and you'll think it for as long as you'll think it and it'll you know make you angry or sad or regretful or whatever depending on its contents and then you'll try to have to figure out how to rearrange your life on the basis of that thought so it's to not be angry or sad or regretful but when once you know how to meditate you can recognize thoughts as thoughts and they just arise and disappear in this wider space of awareness and you locate your well-being in that space as as that space but but if all of that sounds like religious gibberish that is of totally interested in and it would have seemed that way to me when I was 18 the only thing for a hard-headed skeptic uh much of the time is an experience that snaps you out of your egocentric Illusions for some period of time and so for me Peru goes to Peru go to Peru or um um I which I haven't done I haven't done Ayahuasca but for me psychedelics weren't they they were indispensable because I was someone it had you confronted me as an undergraduate in college with whatever I just said I would have even if I had been convinced to try meditating for an hour I wouldn't have had the aptitude for it that such that I would have immediately noticed there was there was there there I would have I would have bounced off I would have got the sense that it didn't work for me like I you know most people you know someone like someone like Richard Dawkins is a perfect example it's like I I am bushed him on my podcast with you know five minutes of meditation and I thought you're gonna say spiked the drink with yeah he no Richard I told Richard he should he should do psychedelics um but most people who are especially and this is especially true of hard-headed rationalist skeptic scientist types um they're so enamored of thought thought is the only appendage they have ever found by which to or by which to interface with reality such that they can't imagine a mind prior to thought they can't imagine a non-conceptual engagement with reality that reveals anything you know it sounds like what do you it sounds like brain damage right like my concepts are great like you should have Concepts as good as my Concepts right why what are you you're going to hit me on the head with a hammer yeah then I'll have fewer Concepts right but so when you point them inward when you say okay just just notice that like just try try to focus on your breath for 10 seconds and notice how hard that is notice what happens notice that you get carried away by something that you are not authoring right like you're did you decide to get distracted about what's going to happen for lunch uh when I just told you to pay attention to your breath and you were on it for two seconds and now you're thinking about lunch at like does that does that no is that at all interesting to you that that's the hardest thing in the world to just pay attention to anything some people find that interesting some people find that that's a there's a sort of an intimation of a path there like okay maybe there's something to discover here that could provide some relief to something that is in fact ailing me but for many people not and then if you give those people some psychedelic experience many of them recognize oh okay there is a there I don't know how I don't know if this one is optimal this is just this is just different but it's so different and some of it is so pleasant and some of it is so undermining of the [ __ ] that I generally find so captivating that this is a Counterpoint to how I've been living my life right and so I need I need to I need more tools and that's how many of us have got into meditation in other news this episode is sponsored by betterhelp that might be something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals it is unbelievably helpful to have someone professionally trained who can help you get through whatever you're facing the service is available for clients worldwide you can log into your account at any time and send a message to your therapist they'll give you timely and thoughtful responses plus you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you don't even have to leave the house it is a quicker cheaper and more convenient way to start doing therapy and you do not know just how good the texture of your own mind could be if you started working with someone professionally trained who can help you get through whatever you're 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