How To Get Out Of Your Head: Joseph Goldstein and Sam Harris on Nirvana, Non-Clinging, Non-Duality, and the Best Way to Meditate
Sam Harris and Joseph Goldstein, influential meditation teachers, debate the directness of Dzogchen versus the gradual cultivation of Vipassana for realizing non-dual awareness. They explore different meanings of non-duality and its practical relevance for meditators seeking to end suffering and upgrade their minds.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Introduction to the Sam Harris and Joseph Goldstein Debate
Joseph Goldstein's Initial Meanings of Non-Duality
Defining Core Buddhist Terms: Jhana, Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Samsara, Nirvana
Joseph's Final Definition of Non-Duality: Observer and Observed
Sam Harris on Metaphysics, Self-Confirming Views, and Direct Recognition
The Role of Non-Clinging in Buddhist Practice and Non-Duality
Sam's Analogy: Mistaking a Coiled Rope for a Snake
Joseph's Theravada Perspective on Nirvana and the Bahiya Sutta
The Passive Voice Practice for Non-Dual Experience
Debate on Dualistic vs. Non-Dualistic Mindfulness and Freedom
Different End Goals Across Buddhist Traditions
The Strengths and Weaknesses of Vipassana Practice
Joseph's Closing Thoughts: Non-Clinging and Supportive Practices
9 Key Concepts
Vipassana (Insight Meditation)
This is a meditation style that forms the foundation of most modern mindfulness practice. It typically starts with a dualistic approach, where an 'I' observes the breath or thoughts, but over time, practitioners may come to see the self as an illusion.
Dzogchen
A Tibetan Buddhist approach that directly points to the open, boundless, and selfless nature of awareness. It emphasizes the immediate recognition that the conventional sense of 'I' is an illusion, leading to what is called non-dual awareness.
Non-dual Awareness
This refers to the recognition that the sense of a separate 'I' observing experience is an illusion. Instead, experience is perceived as simply unfolding, with sensations, thoughts, and emotions passing like weather, collapsing the distinction between subject and object.
Jhana (Absorption)
In the Theravada tradition, Jhana refers to deep states of concentration where the mind becomes unified on a single object. This unification of mind in absorption can be described as a limited form of non-duality.
Dependent Origination
This is a core Buddhist principle that states everything arises out of conditions and passes away. It collapses the duality of existence and non-existence by acknowledging that things are neither purely existent (as they pass away) nor purely non-existent (as they arise).
Samsara
In the Theravada tradition, Samsara refers to all conditioned phenomena, meaning everything that arises due to causes, is impermanent, unreliable, and selfless, including awareness itself. In later traditions like Dzogchen, Samsara is described as the delusion of not recognizing the inherent unity of awareness and emptiness.
Nirvana
In Theravada, Nirvana is an unconditioned reality described as unborn, unformed, uncreated, and unfabricated, transcending awareness. In later traditions, particularly Dzogchen, Nirvana is understood as the recognition of the inseparable unity of clarity (knowing aspect of mind) and emptiness.
Non-clinging
Considered the heart of Buddhist practice and the ultimate liberator of the mind. It encompasses freedom from desire, grasping, conceit (the feeling or sense of 'I am'), and identification with thoughts. From a non-dual perspective, the root of clinging lies in the subject-object dichotomy.
Rigpa
This is the Dzogchen term for non-dual awareness, describing an open, inexpressible condition that arises when the illusory distinction between subject and object is overcome. It is the inseparable unity of clarity (the knowing aspect of mind) and emptiness (its insubstantial, selfless aspect).
7 Questions Answered
Non-duality can refer to several concepts, including the unified mind in absorption, the collapse of existence/non-existence, the non-duality of samsara/nirvana, and most practically, the non-separation of observer and observed. It matters because recognizing it can alleviate suffering by reducing the power of emotions to hijack us when we stop taking them personally.
In Theravada, samsara is all conditioned phenomena (including awareness), and nirvana is an unconditioned reality transcending awareness. In later traditions like Dzogchen, nirvana is the recognition of awareness's inseparable unity with emptiness, and samsara is the delusion of not seeing this unity.
Yes, an enlightened person can experience emotions. From a non-dual perspective, a moment of anger, when recognized, can become an expression of non-dual openness and emptiness, even before the physical sensation of anger dissipates, demonstrating freedom compatible with emptiness.
By re-languaging experiences in the passive voice (e.g., 'sounds being known' instead of 'I'm knowing a sound'), the sense of a separate 'I' as the subject disappears. This collapses the subject-object duality, leading to an effortless experience where knowing and what's being known are inseparable.
Practicing mindfulness dualistically, where there's a subtle division between subject and object, can be self-confirming and maintain the illusion of a separate self. This can prevent the direct recognition of radical freedom, making practice feel like a continuous effort to 'get somewhere' rather than a direct realization of an already present state.
Sam Harris argues that non-dual awareness is always available now, as the ordinary state of consciousness, and need not be gradually achieved. Joseph Goldstein acknowledges that while it is ultimately available, stabilizing and embodying it often requires significant practice and development over time.
The 'undercurrent of thoughts' refers to a subtle, steady stream of light thoughts that often go unnoticed. Dzogchen Rinpoche called them 'the thieves of meditation' because if one is unaware of them, they are lost in these thoughts and not in non-dual awareness, highlighting the need for developed mindfulness.
11 Actionable Insights
1. Recognize Non-Dual Awareness Directly
Seek to recognize the ‘mind of the Buddha’ directly, which is available now and coincident with ordinary consciousness, by ceasing to do what obscures this way of seeing. This allows you to experience ordinary activities as an enlightened being would, without needing extensive preliminary work.
2. Practice Passive Voice Construction
Re-language your experiences to yourself in the passive voice (e.g., ‘sounds being known’ instead of ‘I am knowing a sound’). This helps dissolve the duality of separate subject and object, allowing you to experience things as ‘just things being known’ without a separate ‘I’.
3. Cultivate Non-Clinging for Freedom
Practice non-clinging, which means not desiring experience to be any other way than it is, by not pushing away unpleasantness or grasping at pleasantness. This practice is considered the core of the Dharma and what truly liberates the mind.
4. Experience ‘Just the Seen’
Practice experiencing phenomena directly, such as ‘in the seeing is just the seen’ or ‘in the hearing is just the heard,’ without a sense of a separate ‘me’ witnessing it. This radical evaporation of a sense of a doer or observer brings enormous freedom and reduces personal identification with experiences like anger.
5. Deepen Mindfulness Beyond Recognition
Understand that mindfulness goes beyond mere recognition of thoughts or emotions; it involves the mind being free of greed, hatred, and delusion in that moment. Strive to practice mindfulness in its fullness to achieve this deeper dimension of freedom.
6. Use Frustration for Deeper Inquiry
If you feel frustrated or that your mindfulness practice is insufficient, use that frustration as a key to further inquiry rather than ignoring it. This honesty can reveal deeper dualistic patterns and lead to a more profound understanding of freedom.
7. Develop Supportive Practice Qualities
Cultivate foundational qualities like mindfulness and concentration, as these are necessary supportive practices for stabilizing and remembering non-dual awareness in daily life. Without them, it can be extremely rare for people to remain in non-dual awareness amidst life’s busyness.
8. Gradually Cultivate Mindfulness
For most people, gradually and steadily cultivate mindfulness through practices like watching the breath and noticing thoughts. This gradual approach helps build the foundation necessary to eventually realize non-dual insight and the freedom it brings.
9. Practice Urge Surfing
Engage in ‘urge surfing,’ a meditation technique designed to help you be less attached to your moment-to-moment impulses. This practice helps reduce the power of urges to hijack your experience.
10. Explore Threads of Personal Interest
Instead of trying to grasp all concepts or determine right and wrong, pursue any thread of the discussion that genuinely interests you and seems helpful for relieving suffering. Explore these avenues to see where they lead in your personal practice.
11. Begin with Dualistic Vipassana
Begin your meditation practice with a straightforward, non-paradoxical approach like Vipassana, focusing on watching the breath and noticing thoughts. This method is an accessible starting point for those feeling they have a self and are suffering.
8 Key Quotes
When you stop taking your emotions so personally and so seriously, they lose their power to hijack you.
Dan Harris
For me, anyway, that's the bottom line. That's the point of it all. It's not about some philosophic view apart from, does it alleviate suffering or not?
Joseph Goldstein
In awareness, there's no clinging. And if there's clinging, it's not awareness.
Kensei Rinpoche (as quoted by Joseph Goldstein)
The ability to be aware of whatever's arising in our mind, especially if it's provoking unhappiness or suffering, without claiming it as ours, or even claiming the awareness of the thing as ours, is inherently and deeply freeing.
Dan Harris
In the seeing, just the seen. In the heard, just the heard. In the cognized, just the cognized.
The Buddha (as quoted by Sam Harris)
If you still feel like you're working on a problem when you're meditating, when you're paying attention to the present moment, that frustration bears witness to this predicament, which is it is possible to practice dualistically for a very long time.
Sam Harris
Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine. Whoever understands this, realizes this, practices this, has realized all the teachings.
The Buddha (as quoted by Joseph Goldstein)
The undercurrent of thoughts, not the big dramatic thoughts, but just kind of a pretty steady stream of very light thoughts going through the mind throughout the day that we are mostly unaware of. And he called these the thieves of meditation, the thieves of non-dual meditation.
Dzogchen Rinpoche (as quoted by Joseph Goldstein)
1 Protocols
Passive Voice Practice for Non-Dual Awareness
Joseph Goldstein- Re-language your moment-to-moment experiences to yourself in the passive voice (e.g., instead of 'I'm knowing a sound,' say 'sounds being known').
- Notice that by using the passive voice, the conventional sense of 'I' as the subject disappears, and the object of experience becomes the subject.
- Observe how this linguistic shift collapses the duality of a separate subject and object, leading to an effortless experience where the knowing and what is being known are inseparable, and there is no 'I' apart from it.