Guided Meditation by Sam Harris

Welcome to the Inner Mastery Podcast, presented by World Pharmacy. Take a seat either in a chair or cross-legged on a cushion, and gradually become aware of the sensations of sitting, feelings of pressure in your back or legs, feel your arms at your sides, and perhaps take a few deep breaths, and allow gravity to settle you into your seat. And now gradually become aware of the process of breathing. Notice where you feel the breath most distinctly, either the tip of the nose or the rise in and falling of your abdomen, just feel the mere sensations associated with the breath. From the beginning of the inhalation, through the pause between breaths, and follow the exhalation to the end, simply cover the breath with your awareness. Just feel it however it comes, it's shallow, that's fine, if it's deep, that's fine, just let it come and go naturally. See if you can notice the next inhalation from the moment it begins through its full duration, and so too with the exhalation. And the moment you notice you've been lost and thought, simply observe the thought itself, whether it's images or language, notice how it disappears, and immediately come back to the sensations of breathing. And as you do this, you can open your awareness to all sensation. There's nothing magical about the breath. So you can feel sensations in your body, wherever they spontaneously appear. You can listen to sounds in the room, just notice what you in fact notice in each moment. Feel that your awareness be the space in which each sensation arises. Feelings of pressure, movement, the sensation of breathing, sounds, and even thoughts themselves. Everything that you notice is arising in the same space of consciousness. The sensations of your body, the sounds in the room, feelings of fatigue or restlessness, whatever you can feel or sense or perceive is arising in consciousness in this moment. Simply rest as that condition in which sounds and sensations and emotions arise and change and pass away. Take a moment to feel the sensations of your face and head. Perhaps it feels like your awareness is behind your face or in your head. But the feelings of your face and your head are in awareness in this moment. They're appearing in the same condition. They're appearing in the same place where you're thinking. Your thoughts are not in your head, your awareness or consciousness is not in your head. As a matter of experience, everything is appearing moment by moment in consciousness. And this includes the feeling of having a head, the feeling of being behind your face, looking out at a world that is other than what you are. In fact, what you're calling the world is appearing in the same space. Take a moment to open your eyes and notice the apparent change in your experience. Now there's a sphere of light and color that you see. But what has changed? What you see is appearing in the same space where thoughts and emotions and sensations and sounds are arising in each moment. Close your eyes again and stare into the darkness behind your eyelids. Your visual field was there all along. Everything you can notice is simply a perturbation of consciousness. As a matter of experience, there is nothing outside of consciousness. Simply rest as that condition in which thoughts and sensations and sights and sounds and moods and emotions arise in each moment. One of the most common experiences we have in life is of thoughts, coloring, or seeming to color consciousness itself. Happy thoughts make us happy, sad thoughts make us sad. But there's actually an illusion here that we're not seeing. The consciousness that is aware of happiness and the consciousness which is aware of sadness is not actually ever taking the form of those moods. Take a moment to recall something that bothers you, a disappointment or a recent embarrassment, some conversation that went terribly. Just resurrect that memory for a moment. Think of what you said or didn't say. Think of what you should have done. Think of what you regret. Whatever it is, feel that mood that arises as you dwell on this memory. But simply be the space in which it arises. Feel like a mirror into which some ugly image has been cast. A mirror is never changed by what it reflects. Believe you can feel that you never really take the shape of a bad mood. And notice how insubstantial these thoughts are. How is it that a thought, this mirror, image or bit of language in the mind ever convinces you that it is what you are? How is it that your experience has ever trimmed down and determined by the next arising image or sentence? And so too with a good thought, think of something that makes you happy. Picture someone you love. Picture them being happy. And notice how that begins to brighten the mind. But what is it in you that is aware of these changes, simply aware? Not actually identical to the next arising thought or mood. Where are you amid all these changes? As a matter of experience, you are not identical to anything you can notice. By the mirror fact that you are noticing it and by the mirror fact that it is changing in each moment, none of these things can be what you are. And the moment you notice that you are lost in thought, that you have been thinking without noticing the arising of thought as an appearance in consciousness, simply become aware of the thought itself, the images, the sounds or apparent sounds in the mind, and then come back to the sensation of breathing or to sounds or sensations in the body. Just notice the next appearance, whatever it is. And if you are feeling sleepy or restless, simply feel those states as a constellation of energy. How is it that you notice that you are sleepy or restless? There must be some signature and then become aware of that which is merely feeling the energy of these states. That which is aware of sleepiness is not, in fact, sleepy. Now which is aware of restlessness is not, in fact, restless. Meditation is simply a means to continually drop back into this state of mirror witnessing of everything that arises. Once again, you can open your eyes and notice any apparent change, does it feel like your experience just got bigger in some way? Now all of a sudden the world has come rushing in. But consciousness didn't get any bigger. You were just as conscious with your eyes closed. And the world that you see with open eyes is simply apparent in consciousness. There really is no outside and inside as a matter of experience. The place you see with open eyes is the same place where you are thinking and feeling. For instance, picture something in front of you, perhaps on the floor. Picture a candle burning. Of some people can visualize things quite vividly, but even those of us who can't can still get something there in the space in the mind's eye. Something superimposed on what we see in front of us. The candle or any other object you can visualize is a thought, it's a thought that's now appearing in the midst of what you're seeing with your open eyes, and what you see with your open eyes is structured in a very real sense by concepts in the mind, by patterns, some of which are genetically determined, some of which are built up by experience, by which we recognize objects and differentiate them in space. We'll see if you can relax as much of this machinery as you can, and just view the world as a single sphere of color and light and shadow. Forget about the objects, forget about the boundaries between objects, and just encounter the raw data of scene, just light, just let your awareness go as wide as possible, and see a totality of light and color. Now as you do this, also notice sounds and sensations, feelings in the body. So let consciousness be a single sphere of experience. Now where are you in this condition? Where's the self that answers to the name of I? Is there actually a center to this experience? Or is there just experience? See if you can notice the next thought that arises as it arises. Where are thoughts coming from? And where do they go? Most of us spend most of our lives feeling like we are the thinker of our thoughts. Where is this thinker? Isn't there only the next thought that arises? If you look closely, you will begin to see that the feeling of being the thinker, the feeling that you are authoring your thoughts, or that you are identical to them, that is what it's like to be thinking without noticing that you are thinking. That is the condition of not having seen the arising of thought. Just notice the next thought. Think of the Eiffel Tower. Now think of a red bus. Now remember the name of the first president of the United States. How could any of these appearances be what you are? You are simply noticing them. They arise in an instant, they pass away in the next. How is it that you ever feel identical to this voice that seems to be in your head? How is it that this engine of anxiety and self-criticism keeps turning every hour and day? The last minute just allow yourself to begin again. Come back to the mere sensation of breathing, to sounds, to the feelings of pressure and tingling in your body. Just let your awareness be wide open. And at rest, whatever you noticed.