Simon T.:
He also hints that he isn't done according to his own criterias, and seems to be inclined toward the idea of quasi-linear progression that would have no end. He does acknowledge stages and difficulties and mention Willoughby Britton in the footnotes, though.
I believe Harris is primarily coming from a secular dzogchen prespective (with a helping of Theravadan Vipassana), and what he writes about enlightenment seems consistent with that view.
Sam Harris:
So what would a spiritual master be a master of? At a minimum, she will no longer suffer certain cognitive and emotional illusions—above all, she will no longer feel identical to her thoughts. Once again, this is not to say that such a person will no longer think, but she would no longer succumb to the primary confusion that thoughts produce in most of us: She would no longer feel that there is an inner self who is a thinker of these thoughts. Such a person will naturally maintain an openness and serenity of mind that is available to most of us only for brief moments, even after years of practice. I remain agnostic as to whether anyone has achieved such a state permanently, but I know from direct experience that it is possible to be far more enlightened than I tend to be.
In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening.
Is a pragmatic dharma 4th pather a "spiritual master"? It seems to me that overcoming the "confusion" as he calls it, as what appears to be claimed by 4th pathers, does not necessarily lead to an "openness and serenity" of mind. I think that is more a dzogchen expectation of the results of practice.
Simon T.:
It will be interesting to see how this book will be received. What make Harris interesting is that he already has a large group of followers, composed of scientists, skeptics, bitter atheists and so forth. He went with a tone to really please the skeptics, giving them something to chew on interwinded with Dharma material.
Sam Harris:
Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: 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.
According to the Buddhist teachings, human beings have a distorted view of reality that leads them to suffer unnecessarily. We grasp at transitory pleasures. We brood about the past and worry about the future. We continually seek to prop up and defend an egoic self that doesn’t exist. This is stressful—and spiritual life is a process of gradually unraveling our confusion and bringing this stress to an end. According to the Buddhist view, by seeing things as they are, we cease to suffer in the usual ways, and our minds can open to states of well-being that are intrinsic to the nature of consciousness.
Speaking of someone who could be considered in that target audience, I expect a large part of the book will be about those last two "truths", and I don't find them controversial (and who would really disagree with them?).
But the first is where Harris appears to run into trouble. It is one thing to say that treating our conventional sense of self is an illusion as a method that can increase subjective well-being, but he appears to confuse method with reality, and also ends up falling into the classic Vipssana trap of thinking meditation inherently allows you to see reality "as it is" (though he prefaces it with the "Buddhist view", it appears to be his belief given other things he writes).