I’m a paying subscriber to Waking Up for a couple years. I absolutely am OK paying the subscription fee knowing that others can access without paying. People I’ve shared what I’ve learned about mindfulness as a meditation practice a good deal from Sam, told me that sounds like what they were learning from Stoic philosophy. These two are having a great conversation about the relationship between those two philosophies.
Thank you very much! Sam absolutely understands the most nuanced thought patterns and has the gift of being able to calmly verbalize it.❤ Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Sam Harris was my first introduction to Marcus Aurelius, and eventually I ended up here, deep into Stoicism, a few years ago. Absolutely delightful to come full circle and see him here.
I gotta say, i thought i knew what spiritual teachers were talking about before i had an ego death on psychedelics but after that, i realized i had no concept of what the fuck they were talking about. I wouldn’t have leaped that gap without it. Its the difference between conceptual spirituality and experiential spirituality
As a sober person who cannot take psychedelics, I am glad to hear someone say these radical experiences can be attained without taking them. But I also understand they are more accessible and powerful with them.
Sam confuses me. On the one hand, he says that it's a mistake to identify yourself with your thoughts and to fail to recognize that thoughts are separate things that "arise" in consciousness and that can be "viewed" objectively. And yet on the other hand, he claims that the subject/object distinction between ourself and our thoughts is illusory. And that there is no thinker in addition to the thoughts. That the goal of meditation is "non-duality." So are we identical to our thoughts? Or are we a separate entity watching them arise in consciousness?
I had to think about this, but I think I understand the disconnect between your question and Sam's perspective. Thoughts are seperate in the sense that they are not under our control as 'thinkers' they simple come. The point of mindfulness is to pay attention to this as an experience, and to view its qualities. And though we experience this from a certain point of view, the reality is that even this is a consequence of consciousness being an amalgam of experience both internal and external.
It feels like Ryan never misses an opportunity to cast aspersions at the IDW crew and to invite his guest to do the same. Is that embodiment of wisdom, justice, courage, or temperance?
There is a thought that arises… if you have not personally experienced you may have an opinion but it is from a position of ignorance to some elements that will broaden the spectrum of knowledge with which to have a more substantive discusion.
There are multiple facets of “the work.” There’s mining the insights through psychedelic practices, understanding the insights through reflective practices, and there’s embodying the insights through mindfulness. It is useful to remember that it’s not a single phased process.
Ok, so as to understand what you mean by mining.. would be the insights, ahaa moments - where you have almost like an epiphany, or to have deep conversations with others while in an altered state of mind?
@@flowstateofmind82 yes. More desirable results require more effective behaviors. More effective behaviors require deeper levels of understanding. Deeper levels of understanding require the insights and experiences that shift your perspective. Psychedelic experiences, meditation, fasting, intense exercise, problem solving all lead to insights or epiphanies. Then we need to process the epiphanies to find the deeper level of understanding. That understanding can then become action, the embodiment of the new understanding.
@@chrisrubio8212 currently working on the better actions. Fasting, intense exercise, reading currently - The 5am Club by: Robin Sharma.. very good.. highly recommended if you have not read it. I will be following you due to your knowledge and understanding of this beautiful journey we are all on. I believe we are on the right path in other words learning and knowing the Self and the world we are participating in. Question.. do you believe we can tap into the Akashic Record at will? Or is it that we are open to our spirit guides helping us along the way?
@@chrisrubio8212 did you see my second question to you? About.. are we accessing the Akashic record or is it our Spiritual guides that provide us guidance...? It isn't displaying in the comments section for me. 🤔
Enlightenment is the embodiment of your conscience. Your conscience is the voice that invites you to be your most courageous, most authentic, most excellent self. It’s also known as ecstasis, the flow state or the zone. It is experienced when your conscience flows through every decision and action with zero latency in the system, and without regard to ego or self-doubt. Enlightenment is often fleeting. The more time you can spend in that zone, the more meaningful the experience of your life. It requires focus. Meditation is a key practice for maximizing focus and enlightenment.
Acceptance and commitment therapy combined with stoicism is probably the best way to combine mindfulness and stoicism. Donald Robertson has done a good job of combining the two. He wrote a book called build your resilience that covers this.
Always get a good chuckle when someone says how they know exactly where psychedelics are at without ever having taken them. Tell me again after you've taken 5 dried grams of mushrooms!
And this is a repost not a new one.. Sam mentioned on it he deleted his Twitter a month ago so, we definitely need more Sam Harris on the Daily Stoic podcast even more ❤
The bit on the nature of the self: Most of us have (1) experiences and also (2) thoughts about that experience. We tend to think of the thoughts as 'I' or 'me', and different to the 'experiences'. In other words, there appears to be a thinker who I call 'I'. But actually those thoughts are a form of (transient) experience too. So there is no self, just a flow of experience. Is this interpretation correct?
I have not taken Psychadelics yet (other than mdma which is an empathogen, and quite different to lsd and psilocybin I am told), but I would not pour such scorn on them as Ryan did, without trying them myself, and even then one has to recognise everyones experience might be different. Some people I know who have tripped reported enormous shifts in perspective. Others said it was merely quite unpleasant.
Could it be that western cultures co-opted any benefit of spirituality in the name of political power (including organized religion) , because meditation, which is a completely self-relied mechanism of improvement and enlightenment would've been seen as a threat to them?
I get somewhat frustrated at how dense Ryan can be regarding his skepticism around psychedelics. It's very simple. Some people just need to see/experience something (i.e. "enlightenment") firsthand before they can appreciate the value in it. Stoicism is great once you're immersed in it, but I think there are a lot of people that need to go through some type of experience before they are ready to fully engage with it. It isn't a replacement for "doing the work", it is a sneak preview at what experience can be like if the work is truly put in.
'Mr Harris effectively endorsed media consent manufacturing, so long as it was done to stop an adequately dangerous threat. That is not congruent with the ideals of democracy. If liberals want to protect democracy, they must be willing to live with its results, good or bad'.
Someone who hasn't done psychedelics playing them down and thinking that they know what it's like to do psychedelics is hard to listen to. Language really fails to describe the experience imo. They're not for everyone and should be done respectfully but guessing what it's like really doesn't get you anywhere near there
There is no option than meditation for inner inquiry …one may call it whatever they want …there is no overlap…Read history for last five thousand years of eastern tradition
People are always talking about meditation and psychedelic experience as though they were the same thing or produced roughly the same outcomes. They are entirely two very different things. And anyone , even a life-long meditator, who has never had a boundary-dissolving psychedelic experience (and there are several kinds) should not presume to talk about it as though it were akin to the boundary-dissolving experience(s) that deep meditation can produce.
I’m both a serious meditator (as goofy as it sounds to say that about oneself) and a past psychonaut. There are a lot of similarities. You realize there is more to experience in the mind than you had presumed, you can experience ego dissolution and oneness with others, you apprehend experience more directly and intensely, you can plumb the depths of the subconscious including confronting and healing trauma. Analogies inevitably fall short but I’d say it’s as if a land dwelling being never believed the ocean existed. Meditation is like learning to swim, snorkel and scuba. Psychedelics are like being taken on a ride in a submarine. Of course there are differences but they illuminate a lot of the same territory.
I feel like Sam was getting a little annoyed (or maybe I'm just projecting) by your every response being "but the stoics said..." Like when you try to correct Sam about what "the work" is, as if to entirely dismiss meditation or psychedelic experiences (without having ever even tried them.) I know stoicism is your whole angle, but Sam is just explaining the merits of things you don't understand. The fact that your philosophers of choice had little to say about such things means you should probably just listen, instead of trying to twist the conversation to be about your specific niche (or worse, try to trump insights with yours.)
Sam is my favorite atheist speaker, if he's really persuing truth like the Stoics i'm 100% convinced that he will eventually accept Islam at some point of his journey of searching laboriously for the truth 🥰😍😘💋❤🖤
Dear Jesus I pray for Sam Harris that he will come to experience you because he is missing out on knowing you and being known completely by You. I pray that you will humble him through circumstances and events to such a point that like the King in the bible that he ends up eating grass and going mad if that’s is what is needed for him to know You Lord. Jesus you died for his soul and are the lover of his soul so I pray you do whatever it takes for his salvation. I pray that Sam will be blessed in Jesus name Amen.
@@birdviewer3429 yes until you realise everything you have is God given even their faculties. If you think you have reason or intelligence out of your own doing then it’s the same as a good looking person thinking they got beautiful due to their own efforts or a sports star with above average talent thinking it’s due to their own efforts. When life suddenly shows you otherwise you catch a wake up. Why is an atheist even trying to be a good person , you going to die hopeless and rot in the ground so no point in even been moral or good just be selfish for you only get a few years on this planet and any suffering you have is pointless and for no reason. It’s a hopeless belief system atheism. And it takes belief to be an atheist because good and bad is stolen concepts from religion. Also to believe in science is belief because as soon as a new scientific fact comes out it disproves what you took as fact ! So ultimately you believing in a non truth until then
Yeah he doesn't give it away for free. I've tried as I can't afford it and I didn't get any response when I emailed Sam Harris. It's b*******. Although I do Love Sam Harris and his teachings. He is not altruistic. He is for profit.
I had no problem getting it for free. Then later I paid, I think it was, half of what he normally charges. You may need to make sure there wasn’t a tech glitch or operator error vs. calling it bull.
Ryan Holiday and Sam Harris look at things issue by issue rather than by only partisan lines. What a healthy approach to life! Thank you both!!
I’m a paying subscriber to Waking Up for a couple years.
I absolutely am OK paying the subscription fee knowing that others can access without paying.
People I’ve shared what I’ve learned about mindfulness as a meditation practice a good deal from Sam, told me that sounds like what they were learning from Stoic philosophy.
These two are having a great conversation about the relationship between those two philosophies.
thank you!
Sam is the modern guru , even though i know he wouldn't be liked to be called that way , he saved thousands of lives.
Thank you very much! Sam absolutely understands the most nuanced thought patterns and has the gift of being able to calmly verbalize it.❤ Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Sam Harris is very patient and kind - especially during this interview.
And thank you Sam for the scholarship. During difficult times, I can’t even tell you how much your wisdom helped me.
Sam Harris was my first introduction to Marcus Aurelius, and eventually I ended up here, deep into Stoicism, a few years ago. Absolutely delightful to come full circle and see him here.
I gotta say, i thought i knew what spiritual teachers were talking about before i had an ego death on psychedelics but after that, i realized i had no concept of what the fuck they were talking about. I wouldn’t have leaped that gap without it. Its the difference between conceptual spirituality and experiential spirituality
Thanks for a great conversation! Nice to hear a calm exchange of ideas. I'll be back
Great podcast
As a sober person who cannot take psychedelics, I am glad to hear someone say these radical experiences can be attained without taking them. But I also understand they are more accessible and powerful with them.
Sam confuses me. On the one hand, he says that it's a mistake to identify yourself with your thoughts and to fail to recognize that thoughts are separate things that "arise" in consciousness and that can be "viewed" objectively.
And yet on the other hand, he claims that the subject/object distinction between ourself and our thoughts is illusory. And that there is no thinker in addition to the thoughts. That the goal of meditation is "non-duality."
So are we identical to our thoughts? Or are we a separate entity watching them arise in consciousness?
I had to think about this, but I think I understand the disconnect between your question and Sam's perspective. Thoughts are seperate in the sense that they are not under our control as 'thinkers' they simple come. The point of mindfulness is to pay attention to this as an experience, and to view its qualities. And though we experience this from a certain point of view, the reality is that even this is a consequence of consciousness being an amalgam of experience both internal and external.
Gratitude- thank you gentlemen
Awesome! Met Sam in NYC - book release for Waking Up. I’m a huge fan!
It feels like Ryan never misses an opportunity to cast aspersions at the IDW crew and to invite his guest to do the same. Is that embodiment of wisdom, justice, courage, or temperance?
There is a thought that arises… if you have not personally experienced you may have an opinion but it is from a position of ignorance to some elements that will broaden the spectrum of knowledge with which to have a more substantive discusion.
There are multiple facets of “the work.” There’s mining the insights through psychedelic practices, understanding the insights through reflective practices, and there’s embodying the insights through mindfulness. It is useful to remember that it’s not a single phased process.
Ok, so as to understand what you mean by mining.. would be the insights, ahaa moments - where you have almost like an epiphany, or to have deep conversations with others while in an altered state of mind?
@@flowstateofmind82 yes. More desirable results require more effective behaviors. More effective behaviors require deeper levels of understanding. Deeper levels of understanding require the insights and experiences that shift your perspective.
Psychedelic experiences, meditation, fasting, intense exercise, problem solving all lead to insights or epiphanies. Then we need to process the epiphanies to find the deeper level of understanding. That understanding can then become action, the embodiment of the new understanding.
@@chrisrubio8212 currently working on the better actions. Fasting, intense exercise, reading currently - The 5am Club by: Robin Sharma.. very good.. highly recommended if you have not read it. I will be following you due to your knowledge and understanding of this beautiful journey we are all on. I believe we are on the right path in other words learning and knowing the Self and the world we are participating in. Question.. do you believe we can tap into the Akashic Record at will? Or is it that we are open to our spirit guides helping us along the way?
@@chrisrubio8212 did you see my second question to you? About.. are we accessing the Akashic record or is it our Spiritual guides that provide us guidance...? It isn't displaying in the comments section for me. 🤔
Enlightenment is the embodiment of your conscience. Your conscience is the voice that invites you to be your most courageous, most authentic, most excellent self. It’s also known as ecstasis, the flow state or the zone. It is experienced when your conscience flows through every decision and action with zero latency in the system, and without regard to ego or self-doubt. Enlightenment is often fleeting. The more time you can spend in that zone, the more meaningful the experience of your life. It requires focus. Meditation is a key practice for maximizing focus and enlightenment.
condescension is very common among the self enlightened. keep learning
Thank you!
Acceptance and commitment therapy combined with stoicism is probably the best way to combine mindfulness and stoicism. Donald Robertson has done a good job of combining the two. He wrote a book called build your resilience that covers this.
Always get a good chuckle when someone says how they know exactly where psychedelics are at without ever having taken them. Tell me again after you've taken 5 dried grams of mushrooms!
We need some stoicism on the waking up app! 💚🤘🏼😁
There is an entire series by WIlliam Irvine called the Stoic Path on the app already!
We need more Sam Harris on the Daily Stoic podcast, even
And this is a repost not a new one.. Sam mentioned on it he deleted his Twitter a month ago so, we definitely need more Sam Harris on the Daily Stoic podcast even more ❤
We already have some!
There is
My old friend Soryu Foral, a Zen monk, says you can measure one's enlightenment by how good of a friend they are.
Lol you made Sam Harris chuckle with that simulation line
Isn't this an old podcast episode? It would be appreciated if you added the date o its original release. Or perhaps Im wrong?
Sam Harris for president!
Sam Lumbergh 5:23, 13:57, 17:50, 23:32, 28:39, 31:06, 37:26, 43:24, 45:44, 57:09
The bit on the nature of the self: Most of us have (1) experiences and also (2) thoughts about that experience. We tend to think of the thoughts as 'I' or 'me', and different to the 'experiences'. In other words, there appears to be a thinker who I call 'I'. But actually those thoughts are a form of (transient) experience too. So there is no self, just a flow of experience.
Is this interpretation correct?
What Ryan doesn’t realise is that elements of those peak experiences can be applied to the present moment with greater awareness
I have not taken Psychadelics yet (other than mdma which is an empathogen, and quite different to lsd and psilocybin I am told), but I would not pour such scorn on them as Ryan did, without trying them myself, and even then one has to recognise everyones experience might be different. Some people I know who have tripped reported enormous shifts in perspective. Others said it was merely quite unpleasant.
Wow this was recorded a year ago...why so long to post ?
this is a repost I think
Dead channel fishing for clicks
Could it be that western cultures co-opted any benefit of spirituality in the name of political power (including organized religion) , because meditation, which is a completely self-relied mechanism of improvement and enlightenment would've been seen as a threat to them?
wait i feel like ive seen this episode before, why is it being reuploaded?
Isn't this a replay of the podcast from a year ago?
It is a replay, when talking about Twitter, Sam says that he deleted his account a month ago, while it's been a long time since he did that.
5:40 , 33:27 , 34:53
I get somewhat frustrated at how dense Ryan can be regarding his skepticism around psychedelics. It's very simple. Some people just need to see/experience something (i.e. "enlightenment") firsthand before they can appreciate the value in it. Stoicism is great once you're immersed in it, but I think there are a lot of people that need to go through some type of experience before they are ready to fully engage with it. It isn't a replacement for "doing the work", it is a sneak preview at what experience can be like if the work is truly put in.
Whatever it takes, almost, is worth repeating
Isn't this an old podcast??
Yeah
Yes. Such bad practice to try to pass off old podcast as new.
'Mr Harris effectively endorsed media consent manufacturing, so long as it was done to stop an adequately dangerous threat. That is not congruent with the ideals of democracy. If liberals want to protect democracy, they must be willing to live with its results, good or bad'.
❤
Someone who hasn't done psychedelics playing them down and thinking that they know what it's like to do psychedelics is hard to listen to. Language really fails to describe the experience imo. They're not for everyone and should be done respectfully but guessing what it's like really doesn't get you anywhere near there
I dare you to have on Byung-Chul Han
Psychedelics pedestrian 😂 . That’s the definition of naïveté
There is no option than meditation for inner inquiry …one may call it whatever they want …there is no overlap…Read history for last five thousand years of eastern tradition
People are always talking about meditation and psychedelic experience as though they were the same thing or produced roughly the same outcomes. They are entirely two very different things. And anyone , even a life-long meditator,
who has never had a boundary-dissolving psychedelic experience (and there are several kinds) should not presume to talk about it as though it were akin to the boundary-dissolving experience(s) that deep meditation can produce.
I’m both a serious meditator (as goofy as it sounds to say that about oneself) and a past psychonaut. There are a lot of similarities. You realize there is more to experience in the mind than you had presumed, you can experience ego dissolution and oneness with others, you apprehend experience more directly and intensely, you can plumb the depths of the subconscious including confronting and healing trauma.
Analogies inevitably fall short but I’d say it’s as if a land dwelling being never believed the ocean existed. Meditation is like learning to swim, snorkel and scuba. Psychedelics are like being taken on a ride in a submarine. Of course there are differences but they illuminate a lot of the same territory.
23:50
36:28 man that pause was painful
Ryan. Please name some names of the intellectual dark web that you are referring to. And where you think they are wrong.
Clear Ryan doesn’t understand mindfulness to his fullness. He should ask sam for some mushrooms.
Sam has 10 friends? 😊
This is a repost.
I feel like Sam was getting a little annoyed (or maybe I'm just projecting) by your every response being "but the stoics said..." Like when you try to correct Sam about what "the work" is, as if to entirely dismiss meditation or psychedelic experiences (without having ever even tried them.)
I know stoicism is your whole angle, but Sam is just explaining the merits of things you don't understand. The fact that your philosophers of choice had little to say about such things means you should probably just listen, instead of trying to twist the conversation to be about your specific niche (or worse, try to trump insights with yours.)
As usual, Sam gets to the foundation. Unfortunately, the host gets mired in judgment and opinion of things he's never experienced.
Sam Harris? How many boosters?? 😂😂😂
Sam Harris "shut off your brain, you don't need it"
Sam is my favorite atheist speaker, if he's really persuing truth like the Stoics i'm 100% convinced that he will eventually accept Islam at some point of his journey of searching laboriously for the truth 🥰😍😘💋❤🖤
You're both very intelligent and wise. I look up to you both. But why aren't either of you vegan? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Ridiculous and Cringe. You are why people hate vegans so much.
Ok I'm ready for this hopefully it won't get too political or go on liberal rants but we shall see!!
Timestamps without the child speaking would have this much more productive, palatable and enjoyable.
Try psychedelics man…
Who in the hell calls the psychedelic experience "the work"??
Shut up.
Can Sam quickly wake up from the grieving loss of a loved one? I don’t think so. He seems sort of angry all the time
The fact that Ryan hasn’t taken part of any type of psychedelic really bums me out. Take it to the next level man. It’s pretty ridiculous
Has the irony of being bummed out by something out of your control in a conversation between advocates of stoicism and meditation hit you yet?
He lost credibility to be so afraid and blocked to the idea of trying it. Seems the ego is too strong and doesn’t want to be challenged.
@@yksderson right?! And yet he says he struggles with letting go of ego. It’s a no brainer. He’s just too square if a dude I think
@@thomasbiom ha! Good one
Sam Harris only combines vitriol and self righteousness. Pass
He's only stoic until you tell him Trump will be a good president.
Dear Jesus I pray for Sam Harris that he will come to experience you because he is missing out on knowing you and being known completely by You. I pray that you will humble him through circumstances and events to such a point that like the King in the bible that he ends up eating grass and going mad if that’s is what is needed for him to know You Lord. Jesus you died for his soul and are the lover of his soul so I pray you do whatever it takes for his salvation. I pray that Sam will be blessed in Jesus name Amen.
You missed the whole point of this discussion. May Jesus save your lost soul, and your lost mind. God bless you!
Keep your hatred and bigotry to yourself and the temple. Adults are busy progressing the human condition silly child.
…and this is why people are turning to reason.
@@birdviewer3429 yes until you realise everything you have is God given even their faculties. If you think you have reason or intelligence out of your own doing then it’s the same as a good looking person thinking they got beautiful due to their own efforts or a sports star with above average talent thinking it’s due to their own efforts. When life suddenly shows you otherwise you catch a wake up. Why is an atheist even trying to be a good person , you going to die hopeless and rot in the ground so no point in even been moral or good just be selfish for you only get a few years on this planet and any suffering you have is pointless and for no reason. It’s a hopeless belief system atheism. And it takes belief to be an atheist because good and bad is stolen concepts from religion. Also to believe in science is belief because as soon as a new scientific fact comes out it disproves what you took as fact ! So ultimately you believing in a non truth until then
Yeah he doesn't give it away for free. I've tried as I can't afford it and I didn't get any response when I emailed Sam Harris. It's b*******. Although I do Love Sam Harris and his teachings. He is not altruistic. He is for profit.
I've been using it for free for years
I had no problem getting it for free. Then later I paid, I think it was, half of what he normally charges. You may need to make sure there wasn’t a tech glitch or operator error vs. calling it bull.
Harris stoicism 😂
Sam Harris is a waste of time.
22:45 is the craziest thing I've ever heard 🤭