FYI


http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-path-and-the-goal

Also, there is a pretty good book club discussion of Sam Harris's book on Andrew Sullivan's blog: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/category/book-club/

Thanks!

Interesting discussion. I wish they had kept going longer on Dzochen vs Vipassana. Harris comes out as having much more humor than he comes out usually. It might be the first time I hear him discussing with someone who actually understand what he is talking about.

Thanks for linking that, I enjoyed it.  The discussion around the 1:18:26 mark really caught my attention, where Sam Harris asks

"Is it true to say, from your perspective, if you are being mindful of sadness say, and in that moment sadness is still a problem, that's not mindfulness. Mindfulness contains its own equanimity. If you're gonna spend two seconds of truly being mindful, those are going to be two seconds of relief from the suffering... There is a subtle corruption that they are practicing mindfulness, one, in order to change the experience, to get rid of the sadness say..."

I am also enjoying it. The second half is quite a high level discussion on the intricacies of practice and realization. Sam Harris is really challenging Joseph Goldstein on the goal oriented nature of Vipassana practice, in particular the potential of the gunning/striving for stream entry getting in the way of what is available now: noticing the emptiness/impersonal nature of the present moment. IMO Goldstein defends Vipassana well but also acknowledges that it is not always taught well enough to avoid this potential liability. He also highlights some of the potential drawbacks of Harris's beloved Dzogchen practice. 

In my experience that's correct, but I don't have a problem with people batting thoughts away in certain situations where it's necessary. If the unpleasant feeling is seen and you wait the impulse will go away on its own. Having aversion to what's there (including aversion) is just more aversion.

I thought this part was fascinating. As much as I admire Goldstein he really seemed to be hemming and hawing through this, not that it was a competition (though I did present it that way, just to be an idiot) Of course Harris has a lot of debating experience, and maybe that's just the way he rolls, whereas Goldstein perhaps has more of a conciliatory tendency, and wasn't even anticipating a debate.

It did give me pause. I thought Harris got very close to implying Vipassana was a waste of time, and that after all the sitting and jhanas you got out on the other side realizing, "Oh fuck! It was there all along!" And it seemed to me almost like Goldstein had no real argument against this. Not that he was agreeing with it (or that Harris was even saying it, necessarily) but that it was unspoken between them. I felt like Haris was as aggressive as he could be with a respected teacher, and that Goldstein was reluctant to agree with him and thus call into question a lifetime's work, as well as burst the bubbles of innumerable casual-to-intermediate Vipassana practitioners.