Waking Up Flashcards
Waking up - Sam Harris: What is the origin of the word “spirit”?
“The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which is a translation of the Greek pneuma, meaning ‘breath.’ Around the thirteenth century, the term became entangled with beliefs about immaterial souls, supernatural beings, ghosts, and so forth.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What are some truths about the human mind mentioned on page 8?
“Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What is the illusion about the self?
“The feeling that we call ‘I’ is an illusion. There is no discrete self or ego living like a Minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What is Sam Harris’s goal concerning esoteric religion?
“My goal is to pluck the diamond from the dunghill of esoteric religion.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What fundamental question about happiness does Harris pose?
“Is it possible to be happy before anything happens, before one’s desires are gratified, in spite of life’s difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What alternative does Harris suggest to being “spellbound” by our thoughts?
“There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: How are the Abrahamic religions characterized?
“The Abrahamic religions are incorrigibly dualistic and faith-based… The appropriate attitude…is some combination of terror, shame, and awe.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: How did Meister Eckhart describe his connection to God?
“‘The knower and the known are one… God and I, we are one in knowledge.’”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What happened to Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj for his beliefs?
“He suffered the most grisly death imaginable at the hands of his coreligionists for presuming to be one with God.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What happens if one discovers the sense of being an individual soul is an illusion?
“If one should happen to discover that the sense of being an individual soul is an illusion, one will be guilty of blasphemy everywhere west of the Indus.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: When did the serious study of Eastern thought by outsiders begin?
“Serious study of Eastern thought by outsiders did not begin until the late eighteenth century. The first translation of a Sanskrit text into a Western language appears to have been Sir Charles Wilkins’s rendering of the Bhagavad Gita in 1785.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What is the Pali Canon?
“The Pali Canon, which remains the most authoritative record of the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: How are the teachings of Buddhism different from the doctrines of Abrahamic religions?
“The teachings of Buddhism are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation. They are, rather, empirical instructions: If you do X, you will experience Y.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What does meditation help achieve?
“Meditation is a technique for waking up. The goal is to come out of the trance of discursive thinking… so that we can enjoy a mind undisturbed by worry, merely open like the sky.”
Waking up - Sam Harris: What are the four foundations of mindfulness?
“The four foundations of mindfulness are the body (breathing, changes in posture, activities), feelings (the senses of pleasantness, unpleasantness, and neutrality), the mind (in particular, its moods and attitudes), and the objects of mind.”
