Secular Sangha: A Secular Buddhist Group discussion

Use this thread to discuss Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris.

Here is the first chapter of the book, with both the text and audio of the author reading it: https://samharris.org/podcasts/chapte...

I would also like to advocate for the podcast "Waking Up" by Sam Harris as a lot of the content deals with the nature of human consciousness, meditation, and ethics.

https://samharris.org/podcast/

I think that the book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence Michael Pollan takes a similar approach to what is meant as "spiritual" as Sam Harris does.

Here is a quote from Pollan's book that I think that Harris would agree with:

"But I have no problem using the word “spiritual” to describe elements of what I saw and felt, as long as it is not taken in a supernatural sense. For me, “spiritual” is a good name for some of the powerful mental phenomena that arise when the voice of the ego is muted or silenced. If nothing else, these journeys have shown me how that psychic construct—at once so familiar and on reflection so strange—stands between us and some striking new dimensions of experience, whether of the world outside us or of the mind within. The journeys have shown me what the Buddhists try to tell us but I have never really understood: that there is much more to consciousness than the ego, as we would see if it would just shut up. And that its dissolution (or transcendence) is nothing to fear; in fact, it is a prerequisite for making any spiritual progress. "

The book describes all sorts of ways you can alter consciousness and how we do that every day. I feel like meditation and yoga throughout the week really helps me to be more present in my consciousness and take my life challenges one step at a time, remembering life is a journey, not a destination.