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Reactivity and the risk of getting lost in experience - Sam Harris Daily Meditation 2022.10.02



Sam Harris

Relinquish your reaction to experience by simply noticing experience

This meditation is again dedicated to witnessing and reactivity. The trick, again, is to make the experience itself an object of meditation.


Need for meta-cognitive awareness

However, it must be intelligent noticing. It is not "simply" being aware of each detail of (for example) the breath experience.


If one does that only, there is a risk of getting lost in sensation. It would be "ordinary mindfulness" - e.g. the famous "taste each sensation of the pea".


Instead, it must be a noticing with meta-cognitive awareness. That is an awareness of the process of noticing itself.


The inseparable pair

In the terminology of the "Pointing Out the Great Way" tradition, the risk with today´s meditation is to overly focus on the event view: that is the flow of sensations etc, without simultaneously having the mind view. The mind view is the view of "great expanse".


The meditator must keep in mind the inseparable pair: consciousness and its contents.





A thought on...

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