In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Judson Brewer about addiction, craving, and mindfulness. They discuss the nature of reward-based learning, the role of subjective bias in addiction, the neuroscience of craving, the neural correlates of the sense of self, real-time neuroimaging, effort and effortlessness in meditation, smoking cessation through mindfulness, the difference between dopamine-driven reward and happiness, how to make meditation a habit, working with anxiety, and other topics.

#179- The Unquiet Mind A Conversation with Judson Brewer

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As one Zen master put it - “When will you ever stop?”

unsmoked - 22 December 2019 01:26 PM

As one Zen master put it - “When will you ever stop?”

Reading Chapter 7 in ‘THE END OF FAITH’  - ‘Experiments in Consciousness’, convinces me that Sam Harris knows what the Zen master meant by that comment.  He writes:

“According to the dogma of Christianity, becoming just like Jesus is impossible.  One can only enumerate one’s sins, believe the unbelievable, and await the end of the world. 

“But a more profound response to existence is possible for us, and the testimony of Jesus, as well as that of countless other men and women over the ages, attests to this.  The challenge for us is to begin talking about this possibility in rational terms.”