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Waking Up by Sam Harris and Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson. Lex Fridman and Eric Weinstein's podcasts are also pretty good most of the time.

Or Waking Up by Sam Harris, also woo free.

If you liked this book, or if it just sounds interesting, Sam Harris' podcast is a treasure - Waking Up with Sam Harris[1]

1. http://www.samharris.org/podcast

I liked "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion " By Sam Harris.

I am a paying listener of Sam Harris's Waking Up - He has a lot of interesting guests and I get create book recommendations. I have also been enjoying the weeks and ezra klein's work, and heard "where it began" is good.

I found Waking Up by Sam Harris pretty interesting.
It's a bit more abstract than a how-to manual, more why and what.
http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religio...

As someone who has gradually moved away from the more "woo" end of the spectrum and more towards the practical end, I found Waking Up to be a really good read.

I absolutely loathed The Power of Now. However I enjoyed Waking Up by Sam Harris that seems to offer a similar message but without all the mumbo jumbo.

Related topic: I just finished reading "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" by Sam Harris and it has become my book recommendation for people that don't understand psychedelics or meditation. Sam talks about both in the most lucid way possible. Highly recommended!

"Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion" by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris. Don't be so quick to dismiss it please, give it a try. It's not mysticism.

I'll second Waking Up - I've been interested in mindfulness meditation for years, and this book is what finally helped frame it in a way that went down nicely for me.

I sometimes enjoy the podcast by the same name as well, though the conversations are more hit or miss.

I've just finished Waking Up by Sam Harris and The Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstien. Both of these books are fantastic and really put the answers to the "Why Meditate" question front and center.

I don't have any specific studies to mention, I am afraid, as I've only had them through third party sources. They will be in the books Waking Up by Sam Harris, The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. The last two more specifically.

Mostly related to mind/happiness/consciousness.

+ Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion - Sam Harris

+ Free Will - Sam Harris

+ Mindfulness in Plain English - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

If you'd like a secular guide to experiencing this yourself, for my money, Sam Harris's Waking Up app is the best way to do it. It takes quite awhile to build up the mental toolset to get there, but it's very much worth it.

https://www.wakingup.com

"Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion"
by Sam Harris: http://a.co/d/bpQ6OlS

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins: http://a.co/d/2aP5Tvo

"Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment" by Robert Wright: http://a.co/d/8IawuEo

Sam Harris discusses these topics (amongst others you may find interesting) in conversations on his podcast: https://samharris.org/podcast/

Meditation is a lifechanger if you stick to it. Not just to deal with ADHD, but life in general.

For anyone interested in getting started, I can absolutely recommend Waking Up by Sam Harris. (The idea behind the app's name is just what you do - starting the day with a mindfulness meditation.)

The App has a great 28 day introductionary course (easily digestible 10 minute sessions), among others, and is expanding its content right now. If you can't afford a subscription, you can easily unlock it for free simply by sending a mail to the support.

I've listened to Sam Harris' stuff too not long ago and I'm not sure if it changed my life, but it definitely blew my mind and is part of a broader interest in this type of stuff that is changing my life. I don't agree with all his opinions, but his interview with Tim Ferriss and his book Waking Up are both fantastic.

Tim Ferriss Interview: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/06/18/sam-harris/

Waking Up (narrated by Sam himself, which I prefer): http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/Waking-Up-Au...

Take that, Sam Harris!

In "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" he wrote a bunch of silly stuff - thoroughly referenced with cherry-picked scientific articles - about the split brain. He went as far as estimating the amount of data passing through the corpus callosum when we don't even have a computational model for the brain.

It was almost as ridiculous as claiming that the self is an illusion because we can experience its apparent dissolution.

This is a decent article but I strongly dislike the title. The phrasing "we aren't built for" is so pessimistic, as if being mindful (living in the moment) is hopeless or unachievable, or even undesirable or harmful.

Thousands of years of meditation practices have proven that living in the moment is very possible. Yes our brains are constantly planning and scheming and trying to derail us, but this can be addressed with a modest amount of deliberate practice.

Perhaps imagining the future is emblematic of humans, and maybe that has developed over the last 2 million years, but animals have been around 300 million years, and they are (presumably) quite adept at living in the moment. We can be as well. Striving towards that goal is very beneficial and rewarding.

One entry point to meditation is Sam Harris's book Waking Up which I describe here: http://www.kmeme.com/2016/07/waking-up.html

Hi, well, first I must admit that that by itself is not an original thought, of course. I've most recently read it in Sam Harris' Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.

I've made the same comment (nothing original, as I said... :) elsewhere in this thread, and someone replied with the golden rule, maybe you want to read the discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13731755

Elsewhere, the argument has been made that the miraculous parts of Christianity (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) are largely not original, but collages of earlier prophets, though I couldn't point you to that literature off the top of my head, and it's not the point we're discussing anyways.

[1] We Are Legion We Are Bob (Bobiverse 1-3) - Just finished this trilogy and really enjoyed it! It's well paced, has a very likable protagonist and has a nice sprinkling of programming/CS humor.

[2] Guns, Germs and Steel - Can't believe I waited so long to check this off my list. Very thorough and well written argument about how geography and environment shaped the modern world.

[3] Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion - Scientific and philosophical reasoning for why the self is an illusion. Covers a lot of ground without getting too heavy: Buddhism, mediation, neuroscience, religion, and more.

If you are a technical/rational type, a lot of the information on
meditation can seem ...well, wacky. That's why I would suggest
listening to a few episodes of Sam Harris' podcast. Specifically those
about the mind and consciousness in general. He's got a background in
neuroscience and approaches this subject from a viewpoint that you
might feel more comfortable with.

He's also written a whole book about this topic, called "Waking Up: a
Guide to Spirituality Without Religion", which I think might be of interest to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMiPBy4Zwag

1) Total Freedom : The Essential Krishnamurti. Selected writings of Jiddu Krishnamurti from his 50+ years of lectures and notes to self.

2) Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, by Sam Harris. An amazing masterpiece on a rational approach to meditation.

3) Coming to our senses, by Jon-Kabat Zinn. A collection of essays which delve into the urgency of understanding oneself in the present moment & the case for contemplative life.

Maybe you already do both or maybe they sound banally to you but they are important. (Especially when you're young; form habits that will help you in the long run.)

- Get some exercise, this might also help you make new friends. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26978184/
- Eat healthy foods. There is growing evidence of a relationship between gut microbial metabolism and mental health. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0337-x https://www.nature.com/news/the-tantalizing-links-between-gu...

This will take some time.
If you still feel crushed by your job then think about doing something else. You're still very young, you have lots of options.

If you have the time, read some books to gain perspective, to widen your horizon. Use what works for you. Examples:
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- Twelve Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
- Waking Up by Sam Harris

Or listen to some podcasts, e.g., Joe Rogan has vastly different people on his show. You can get a lot of ideas from them.

I find your comments all fascinating. I have gone through some sort of spiritual experiences recently and have also had a similar scientific perspective. And how do I reconcile? The subjective with the objective?

I think the book Waking Up by Sam Harris gave me what I needed to take a step in trusting my own subjective experience. And realizing that there is knowledge and wisdom that science has not enveloped. And that that is okay--it doesn't mean it's out of reach for science, just not there yet.

My two cents.

What I expect to be in a similar vain is "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion".

While I enjoyed reading it and it helped me make sense of a lot of things related to meditation, mindfulness and spirituality in general, I can't say I felt every other sentence was highlight worthy.

The chapter on spiritual frauds was however very enloghtening.

I've used several meditation apps including Headspace, Calm and Ten Percent Happier and found Harris' Waking Up to be by far the best. It separates itself from the others in that it speaks to the epistemological question of what it means to be a person.

Meditation is much more than simply clearing your mind or practicing letting go of your thoughts, although those are certainly benefits. It's about completely re-orienting yourself with respect to your relationship with the world and, most importantly, other people.

Definitely. Sam Harris' book Waking Up is what turned me on to psychedelics as a mind expanding tool rather than just a party drug, which I had little interest in.

In it, he talks about how his early experiences with psychedelics turned him on to the fact there was something real worth pursuing in meditation and mindfulness beyond the superstitious bullshit. Most of the book is about using meditation as a tool for spirituality without religious baggage or supernatural explanations.

The way he and others talk about it, is that psychedelics effectively force any mind into an objectively different state of consciousness. Even though it doesn't last long and the memory of it fades, just the awareness that radical mind shifts are possible is enough to help people take mindfulness practice seriously.

Depends on what kind of religion you mean. I'll occasionally pop in to Zen or Insight meditation sessions, and I've definitely found them helpful. You'd be hard pressed to say that Zen isn't a religion, but since it's not theistic, I don't think belief is particularly necessary for the experience.

You might also check out Sam Harris's latest book. A noted atheist, he's recently written a book called, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion". I haven't read it, but I heard him on the radio last night, and it sounds like it is aimed squarely at your concern.

I highly recommend the guided meditation that goes along with that book, Waking Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OboD7JrT0NE

It has helped me attain the deepest level of meditative state, where I am almost aware of my consciousness as a separate process from the constant sensory input. Becoming an observer, empty-head.

On another level, I've found it very settling in times of emotional turmoil.

I did have a near panic attack from the book when he makes somewhat of a case that both hemispheres of our brains might be independently conscious, with one permanently silenced as control of the body is held by the active one that controls our body. A prisoner in someone else's body, literally, with no way to interact with the world. It is pure physiological horror. But alas I cannot do anything about (other than try to talk to that other entity and see if it can trigger some sort of response?) so no use getting worked up? The world is full of day-to-day cruelty and it's not my fault.

FWIW, I'd highly recommend 'Waking Up' podcast by Sam Harris. He has this rare combination of eloquence and substance. The specific episodes I liked are with the following guests:

David Deutsch[1][2]; Paul Bloom[3] -- he has two other episodes, too; Stuart Russell[4]; David Chalmers[5]; William MacAskill[6]; and Douglas Murray[7].

[1] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/surviving-the-cosmos

[2] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/52-finding-our-way-in-th...

[3] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/56-abusing-dolores-a-con...

[4] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/the-dawn-of-artificial-
intelligence

[5] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/david-chalmers

[6] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/being-good-and-doing-goo...

[7] https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/on-the-maintenance-of-ci...

"Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion", by Sam Harris

Waking Up by Sam Harris. The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.

If you like Rilke, you'd also really like James Hollis' The Middle Passage (1993).
As for as books from the past decade go David Brooks' The Road to Character was pretty good. His follow-up The Second Mountain would have been better if he didn't recycle so much from the previous work. Sam Harris' Waking Up was pretty eye opening as Harris is a very lucid thinker.

Waking Up by Sam Harris http://www.samharris.org/waking-up

I didn't really understand meditation other than thinking of it as some mystical thing or just relaxing until I read a simple description in I believe Waking Up by Sam Harris. In the past I always heard meditation as clearing your mind, and maybe for some that is possible, but in reality what is most common is focus on something repeating in your senses to stop thinking about other things. The most common one seems to be breath. Close your eyes, breath in slowly through your nose and feel the breath coming in... the tingle in your nose as they air comes in and "look" at that feeling, breath out and focus on the feeling of the air going out, repeat... focus your mind and really eyes on the feeling of each breath. By focusing on this feeling you are filling your mind with this thought and not leaving room for others. Another situation I have had success with was walking. Each step you take is a little different. If you are on a rocky/gravel trail this is even better. Focus of the feeling of your steps and each pressure point coming through your shoes and any other sensations for each step, visualize where on your foot each sensation is occurring. It is very relaxing.

Yeah, I don't disagree- but I do sometimes wonder if those same psychological truths could have been derived without said religions. That said, I did read Harris' book Waking Up and thought it was interesting and his thought was that Buddhism did provide some specific/keen insights on psychology and the mind that we really haven't encountered or arrived at anywhere else, at least not before Buddhism did. So I think my stance would be near the statement you quoted too.

I do have a passing interest in Buddhism (but not as an adherent, though I do meditate, read about, and appreciate some of it) though both Buddhism and the better forms of Christianity I still don't think are for me (nor is any organized religion) but I can appreciate parts of them from a distance and those that are still adherents, if their actions follow positive paths from them. I think I've matured since my journey out of the faith began, so it's easier now to be a bit more measured (yet still firm) in my rejection of it.

Waking Up by Sam Harris

Sam is a neuroscientist and meditation devotee who offers a cunning and life-altering exposé on the mysteries around consciousness and the investigations and learnings therein. One mind-bender from the book: some people have undergone a procedure to separate the left and right sides of the brain as treatment for rare disease. Following this procedure, the left and right sides can independently answer questions (sometimes simultaneously) posed by researchers, frequently offering conflicting answers. Interestingly, the right brain alone cannot speak but can answer questions by drawing or choosing letters/cards. Thus, it would appear that following the procedure, each side of the brain is conscious, yet unaware of the consciousness inside the other side.

You can absolutely find people more qualified for book recommendations on the subject than me, but here are a few:

"Confession of a Buddhist Atheist" by Stephon Batchelor. Useful to me for understanding the cultural context of Buddhism.

Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein. I just find Goldstein's style the easiest to comprehend in a field that often comes across as frustratingly esoteric

Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I thought this book is interesting because it draws parallels to Western authors, particularly Thoreau.

Sam Harris's "Waking Up" app may also be worth a listen. Besides the actual mindfulness practice, there are a lot of discussions on theory and he has conversations with a variety of people that come to the topic from different perspectives.

I don't really see how mindfulness would need anything specific for a particular field / personality type. What is special about being a "hacker" that requires a special approach to mindfulness?

If you're trying to find "mindfulness hacks" I think you'd probably be missing the point.

There's plenty of "non-hippie" books out there on the subject these days... Waking Up by Sam Harris and 10% Happier by Dan Harris come to mind.

> "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain

Sam Harris has a lengthy discussion about this separation in "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" where he looks at what we've learned from patients who've undergone a corpus callosum surgery. The TL;DR of that surgery is that it's done on people with severe seizures to sever the two hemispheres of the brain to minimize the seizures. But it also tends to (gross over-simplification incoming) create two distinct personalities in the same person, so Harris looks at essentially what gets doubled as elements that cannot be part of the self.

A lot of the rest of the book also deals with the nature of self as revealed through meditative practice and drug use. It's a somewhat tedious read, but it's really fascinating stuff.