Sam Harris commenting on his book
The End Of Faith speaks about eastern contemplative traditions (especially Bhuddism)
Quote:
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... There's a deeper message from our conteplative traditions beyond that we can change our minds. The message is there's something beyond the search for pleassure and pain, there's something beyond joy and sorrow, just the v???tutes of human experience and what is beyond is not some distant paradise. It is simply cosciousness itself, there's this insight that consciousness, that very thing that is aware of your experience in this moment, the very thing that is hearing the sound of my voice, that is feeling the sensation of your bodies sitting there. That transends its content in some basic sense. That which is aware of joy for instance, that which is aware of sorrow is not actually improved by joy or diminished by sorrow and what meditation is, is a way of turning consciousness upon itself to try to glimpse this fact and to glipse the way it feels. It dosen't feel like herself(?), it doesn't feel like "I" We all walk around feeling like we're thinkers of our thoughts, experiencers of our experience. We feel like we're having experience, we're not merely identical to our experience ...
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the whole speach of Sam Harris
By the way Sam Harris is considered one of the four most important musketeers of atheism. Seems to me like atheists are so much closer to Bhuddism than some 99% Christians - fans of God in the sky