Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without ReligionFor the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives. Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - Tytania - LibraryThingYou know I have to have a very high regard for Mr. Harris to read a whole book exhorting me to consider Buddhism and meditation. And I do. He presents an empiricist's take throughout. I still really ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - andreas.wpv - LibraryThingAfter having seen interviews with Harris, had to read this: Convoluted, confusing, incoherent. Using false dilemmas to make points. Using outliers as examples why non-outliers need to be seen different. Wordy and unconvincing. All in all, very disappointing, discouraging. Read full review
Contents
| 11 | |
Religion East and West | 18 |
Mindfulness | 34 |
The Truth of Suffering | 40 |
The Mystery of Consciousness | 51 |
The Riddle of the Self 81 What Are We Calling I? | 89 |
Meditation | 119 |
Gurus Death Drugs and Other Puzzles 151 172 | 151 |
Conclusion | 201 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity Advaita Advaita Vedanta Alexander Alexander’s appear arise attention aware behavior believe body brain Buddha Buddhism Christian claim cognition consciousness contemplative corpus callosum correlated cortex difference drugs Dzogchen emotional ence End of Faith enlightened exists experience experienced eyes fact feeling glimpse goal guru happiness human mind illusion imagine insight instance ketamine left hemisphere lives look matter MDMA meditation memories mental merely mirror neurons nature of consciousness ness Neural neuroimaging neurons Neurosci never nondual one’s ourselves pain perception person philosophers physical Poonja-ji possible problem psilocybin psychedelics psychological reality realize reason recognize religion right hemisphere Rinpoche Sam Harris scientific scientists sciousness seems self-transcendence selflessness sensations sense Siddhartha Gautama simply split-brain suffering teacher teachings teleportation Terence McKenna thing thought tion traditional true Trungpa truth Tulku Urgyen Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche unconscious understand vipassana Waking well-being
Bibliographic information
| Title | Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion |
| Author | Sam Harris |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Simon and Schuster, 2014 |
| ISBN | 1451636032, 9781451636031 |
| Length | 256 pages |
| Subjects | › Body, Mind & Spirit / Inspiration & Personal Growth Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects Social Science / Sociology of Religion |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |