Waking Up from Mental Suffering
How meditation sets you free from mental suffering by eliminating the sense of self
I recently finished a book called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris that was recommended by my friends. This book is “a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.” It talks about not only medication but also things like consciousness and the notion of free will out of necessity.
I have been interested in the notion of free will and the question of what is what I call “I.” This is seemingly one of the popular philosophical questions of all time. The philosophy class I am taking right now touched on it as the first topic for us to be confused about.
Meditation and Mental Suffering
Out of that type of curiosity, I had started meditating in an attempt to observe something that’s there that I am not aware of. Meditation also helps cultivate a better state of mind. He explains his definition of meditation and why people would want to meditate in Waking Up:
As every meditator soon discovers, distraction is the normal condition of our minds: Most of us topple from the wire every second — whether gliding happily into reverie or plunging into fear, anger, self-hatred, and other negative states of mind. Meditation is a technique for waking up. The goal is to come out of the trance of discursive thinking and to stop reflexively grasping at the pleasant and recoiling from the unpleasant, so that we can enjoy a mind undisturbed by worry, merely open like the sky, and effortlessly aware of the flow of experience in the present. (page 39, Waking Up)
it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life. Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it. (page 47, Waking Up)
If forced to explain what meditation is in my words, the answer would be about getting rid of the notion of self and simply observing the field of consciousness in which every experience in your life appears and disappears.
Everything is happening in your brain. Like Naval Ravikant said, to a tree, there’s no concept of good or bad. The world is neutral.
I feel meditation has been helping me train my mind in that way.
It once felt like life decided to take a turn on me and all the distractive and negative thoughts came along. Learning about how to overcome pessimism and depressing thoughts also let me dive more into the exploration of philosophy and science.
There seem to be different approaches for overcoming mental suffering that pop up commonly in articles/books. After reading them and thinking in circles, one of the major ones seemed to be just trying to counterbalance negative feelings. Sounded so simple.
Once your mind is trained to react negatively, the only way is to reengineer it, that is to make yourself think positively, even though that might not how you actually feel.
This approach feels like it works to different degrees depending on what kind of pessimistic thought you apply it to. For example, take being happy for other people. Feeling happy about fortunate events that happened to your family. Easy. How about your close friends. Fairly easy. But how about your neighbor? How about strangers? You tend to be more judgemental about the unknowns. And at this point, it feels like lying even though you know you want to be able to be happy for anyone. Maybe this was not the best example but the point is to try to look at the bright side. Always.
Sam introduces this approach as of one the ways to address mental suffering:
We can address mental suffering of this kind on at least two levels. We can use thoughts themselves as an antidote, or we can stand free of thought altogether. The first technique requires no experience with meditation, and it can work wonders if one develops the appropriate habits of mind. Many people do it quite naturally; it’s called “looking on the bright side.” (page 95, Waking Up)
How I interpreted this passage was:
Fight mental suffering
or
Just observe it (which is different from ignoring it) coming and going (meditation)
This second approach, “stand[ing] free of thought altogether,” seems to require getting rid of the notion of self or free will.
The Illusion of Free Will
Sam talks about the notion of self multiple times in Waking Up. And, that led me to read his other book, Free Will, which primarily focuses on the notion of free will as the title suggests.
I had heard his opinion about consciousness and free will in his conversations with other scientists/philosophers on his podcast. His statement on the notion of self came to me as an interesting surprise when I first heard about it and tried to comprehend it. The same statement is introduced in Free Will as well:
Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have. Free will is actually more than an illusion (or less), in that it cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them. (page 5, Free Will)
How depressing and counterintuitive. We are merely the accumulation of the influences upon our genes. We are merely creatures that are just acting according to past moments.
However, the idea of not having the sense of “I” also seems to let me be just more grateful for everything like he also describes in Free Will:
Speaking from personal experience, I think that losing the sense of free will has only improved my ethics — by increasing my feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and diminishing my sense of entitlement to the fruits of my own good luck. (page 45, Free Will)
Everything in my life has happened because of things that are not “I”. Still, I am in the situation I am in now. By being free of self, you have no other option but to be just thankful. How did all of it happen? Really.
I did nothing but be influenced by that which is me and not me and become the accumulation of who I am now.
I was born in Japan, one of the most developed countries on the planet. I never had to worry about dying because of hunger or random curable decease.
I am grateful that my family comes from one of the blue zones where people tend to live the longest. I am physically healthy and haven’t been sick for as long as I can remember (at least years) to the extent that I almost forgot the feeling of being ill. This is really a gift. I didn’t earn any of it.
I can’t help but work as hard as I can and be as lazy as I am, which is the result of my personal traits I happen to have developed since (or before) I was born. I am grateful that I am capable of being influenced by influences, especially good ones.
I am grateful that, in high school, I met the teacher who recommended me to study abroad for two weeks when I couldn’t speak English and had never been abroad. Without this experience, I wouldn’t have even attempted to use English outside of classrooms. I am grateful that, when I visited the States in my senior year of high school for the second time, I met people who were working in tech in which I work and about which I am passionate now. I couldn’t help but decide to move to the Bay Area after high school.
I am grateful that my friend recommended me to start listening to a particular podcast, which led me to encounter one of the episodes in which the guest talked about the causes of depression. I am grateful that I somehow decided to pick up the book the guest wrote after a long time of not finishing a single book for years. I am grateful that I am interested in learning about things and about myself, which also ultimately led me to read those two books by Sam Harris.
I am grateful for the people who haven’t let go of me including my family and friends. You’re shaping my life. I can keep going on this endless list.
Of course, this is not the most desirable way of thinking, which Sam also explains: “Our interests in life are not always served by viewing people and things as collections of atoms — but this doesn’t negate the truth or utility of physics.” I find other (not necessarily alternate) ways of thinking like taking full responsibility for everything in your life. Because then that allows you to take ownership of everything and act on it. Sometimes, it’s a great thing to be able to ‘feel’ that you have control over everything.
Combining the so-called ‘looking at the bright side’ approach and freeing myself of thoughts is most likely necessary and most likely I’d have to find the fine balance between them.
Observing all those thoughts coming to my mind after reading Free Will, I have somehow decided to bundle them together to make sense of them and put it on the internet. I don’t know why but I felt like it. So I decided to do so. I know the whole thing is corny.
If you finished reading it, you have wasted some of your time for some reason. Thank you.
At least, I am peaceful for this brief moment.
And, everything is going to be fine.
I didn’t do that much editing for this one. If you don’t know me personally, maybe some parts don’t make sense.