The Importance of Meditation

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In terms of a daily practice of you know 10 minutes or even an hour I think that the vast majority of people will not experience anything significantly negative from that apart from boredom. One of the things that was kind of an epiphany for me was that on having no head it's not an epiphany and in a permanent way but that you talk aboutYou just mention it in one of your guided meditations this book by Douglas Harding and there's something really powerful about that image.

Sam Harris returns to the podcast to talk about meditation and his new Waking Up meditation app. What are the goals of mindfulness practice - stress reduction and greater focus, or something much deeper? Can it cure David's existential dread? Tamler's fear of his daughter going away to college? Can sustained practice erode the illusion of self? Is that even something we'd want to do? What if it diminishes our attachment to people we love? And what is the self anyway? Is Sam a defender of panpsychism? So many questions... Plus, the ethics of creating talking elephants by curing them of their autism through bonding and possibly mounting. (Seriously.)

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