How To Get Out Of Your Head: Joseph Goldstein and Sam Harris on Nirvana, Non-Clinging, Non-Duality, and the Best Way to Meditate
🤖 AI Summary
Overview
This episode explores the concept of non-duality and its practical implications for meditation and reducing suffering. Dan Harris moderates a lively debate between two prominent meditation teachers, Joseph Goldstein and Sam Harris, as they discuss differing approaches to mindfulness, the nature of awareness, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice.
Notable Quotes
- In awareness, there's no clinging. And if there's clinging, it's not awareness.
– Joseph Goldstein, on the essence of non-dual awareness.
- Either a moment of mindfulness delivers the goods of freedom, or it doesn't. You can't fake it.
– Sam Harris, on the immediacy of non-dual insight.
- Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine. Whoever understands this has realized all the teachings.
– Joseph Goldstein, quoting a foundational Buddhist teaching.
🧘♂️ The Debate on Non-Duality
- Sam Harris advocates for Dzogchen, a Tibetan Buddhist practice emphasizing direct recognition of non-dual awareness, where the sense of a separate self dissolves.
- Joseph Goldstein highlights the gradual cultivation of mindfulness through Vipassana, arguing that most people need a steady practice to stabilize non-dual insights.
- Non-duality is described as the collapse of the subject-object distinction, where experiences like anger are no longer owned
by a self, leading to profound freedom.
📜 Multiple Meanings of Non-Duality Across Traditions
- Joseph Goldstein explains that non-duality has varied interpretations across Buddhist traditions:
- Theravāda: Non-duality in deep concentration states (jhana).
- Mahāyāna/Vajrayāna: Non-duality of samsara (worldly existence) and nirvana (liberation).
- Dzogchen: The inseparability of awareness and emptiness.
- These differences reflect distinct metaphysical views and goals, such as the cessation of all phenomena in Theravāda versus the recognition of awareness as ultimate reality in Dzogchen.
🌟 Practical Relevance of Non-Dual Awareness
- Both teachers agree that non-duality can alleviate suffering by reducing identification with emotions and thoughts.
- Sam Harris argues that non-dual awareness is immediately accessible and eliminates the need for prolonged practice.
- Joseph Goldstein emphasizes that supportive practices like mindfulness and concentration are often necessary to sustain non-dual awareness in daily life.
🌀 The Role of Non-Clinging in Meditation
- Non-clinging, or the ability to let go of attachment to thoughts, emotions, and the sense of self, is identified as the core of Buddhist practice.
- Joseph Goldstein introduces the passive voice practice,
where one reframes experiences (e.g., sounds being heard
instead of I hear sounds
) to dissolve the sense of a separate self.
- Sam Harris critiques dualistic mindfulness, suggesting it can perpetuate a subtle sense of striving, whereas non-dual mindfulness offers immediate freedom.
🔍 Metaphysics and Self-Confirming Views
- The discussion highlights how metaphysical views shape meditation practices and experiences.
- Sam Harris contends that Dzogchen's non-dual approach reveals the inherent freedom of awareness, while Joseph Goldstein notes that Theravāda's emphasis on cessation leads to a different ultimate goal.
- Both agree that practitioners should explore what resonates with them and use their practice to alleviate suffering.
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📋 Episode Description
Which is the best path to freedom?
Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Barre, Massachusetts. He is the author of many books including, most recently, Dreamscapes of the Mind.
Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, author, podcaster and the proprietor of the Waking Up app.
In this episode we talk about:
- What the term "non-duality" means — and why it matters to ordinary meditators.
- The multiple meanings of non-duality across Buddhist traditions (Theravāda, Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna).
- How different traditions (and even different teachers within them) define samsara and nirvana.
- The non-duality of the observer and observed — and how that insight can alleviate suffering.
- Whether understanding non-duality is practically relevant for reducing stress and emotional reactivity.
- The evolution of Buddhist teachings over time and how interpretations differ across countries.
- Sam's argument that the non-dual view can be directly experienced in everyday consciousness — and that realizing it ends unnecessary suffering.
- Joseph's emphasis on non-duality as one path among many toward the ultimate goal: the end of suffering.
- How metaphysics and direct experience intersect, and whether doctrinal differences are "self-confirming."
- The concept of "non-clinging" as the real heart of Buddhist practice — and how it relates to non-dual awareness.
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