Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and hostage to the character of those thoughts. You can break this spell, but it takes training just like it takes training to defend yourself against a physical assault.
Interpretation
Our suffering largely stems from our own thoughts, and we can learn to control them.
This quote by Sam Harris emphasizes the significant impact that our own thoughts have on our emotional well-being. It suggests that much of our distress is self-inflicted through negative thinking patterns, and highlights the importance of mental training and awareness in overcoming this challenge, much like one would train to defend against physical threats.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a mindfulness workshop to inspire participants to reflect on their thought patterns.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Spiritual light rarely comes to those who merely sit in the darkness waiting for someone to flick the switch.
Fear is felt by writers at every level. Anxiety accompanies the first word they put on paper and the last.
No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.
Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one's focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into self-assurance.
He who is virtuous is wise; and he who is wise is good; and he who is good is happy.
Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.