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.
Careless indifference and bodily restlessness in meditation cause negative vibrations.
Wherever I sit is the head of the table.
Even our most difficult moments bring us gifts. The trick, of course, is gratitude. Therein will you find both your peace and your joy.
In their innocence, very young children know themselves to be light and love. If we will allow them, they can teach us to see ourselves the same way.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.
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