Chapter 1: Spirituality

Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others. (2)

…most of us spend out time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. (3)

It was as if, having glimpsed the properties of one set of parallel lines, I suddenly understood what must be common to them all. (5)

Nothing in this book needs to be accepted on faith. Although my focus is on human subjectivity–I am, after all, talking about the nature of experience itself–all my assertions can be tested in the laboratory or your own life. In fact, my goal is to encourage you to do just that. (7)

The problem of finding happiness in this world arrives with our first breath–and our needs and desires seem to multiply by the hour. To spend any time in the presence of a young child is to witness a mind ceaselessly buffeted by joy and sorrow. As we grow older, our laughter and tears become less gratuitous, perhaps, but the same process of change continues: One roiling complex of thought and emotion is followed by the next, like waves in the ocean. (15)

Any view of consciousness and the cosmos that is available to the human mind can, in principle, be appreciated by anyone. It is not surprising, therefore, that individual Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists have given voice to some of the same insights and intuitions. This merely indicates that human cognition and emotion run deeper than religion. (20)

There is now little question that how one uses one’s attention, moment to moment, largely determines what kind of person one becomes. Our minds–and lives–are largely shaped by how we use them. (31)

The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world. (34)

Most of us spend every waking moment lost in the movie of our lives. Until we see that an alternative to this enchantment exists, we are entirely at the mercy of appearances. (38)

The goal is to come out of the trance of discursive thinking and to stop reflexively grasping at the pleasant and recoiling from the unpleasant, so that we can enjoy a mind undisturbed by worry, merely open like the sky, and effortlessly aware of the flow of experience in the present. (39)

We know that the worst can happen to anyone at any time–and most people spend a great deal of mental energy hoping that it won’t happen to them. (41)

Even for extraordinarily lucky people, life is difficult. And when we look at what makes it so, we see that we are all prisoners of our thoughts. (42)

It is quite possible to lose one’s sense of being a separate self and to experience a kind of boundless, open awareness–to feel, in other words, at one with the cosmos. (43)

Of course, most people never truly master the practice and don’t reach a condition of imperturbable happiness. The near goal, therefore, is to have an increasingly healthy mind–that is, to be moving one’s mind in the right direction. (44)

Every mental state you have ever had has arisen and then passed away. (45)

Some people are content in the midst of deprivation and danger, while others are miserable despite having all the luck in the world. This is not to say that external circumstances do not matter. But it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life. Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it. (47)

In one sense, the Buddhist concept of enlightenment really is just the epitome of “stress reduction”–and depending on how much stress one reduces, the results of one’s practice can seem more or less profound. 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. (48)

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. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life. (49)

Chapter 2: The Mystery of Consciousness

As a matter of your experience, you are not a body of atoms, molecules, and cells; you are consciousness and its ever-changing contents, passing through various stages of wakefulness and sleep, from cradle to grave. (52)

Arranging atoms in certain ways appears to bring about an experience of being that very collection of atoms. This is undoubtedly one of the deepest mysteries given to us to contemplate. (53)

Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion (54)

But the reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself–and directly, through first-person experience. It follows, therefore, that rigorous introspection–“spirituality” in the widest sense of the term–is an indispensable part of understanding the nature of the mind. (62)

The most astonishing quality of dreams is surely our lack of astonishment when they arise. The sleeping brain seems to have no expectation of continuity from one moment to the next. (This is probably owning to the diminished activity in the frontal lobes that occurs during REM sleep.) Thus, sweeping changes in our experience do not, in principle, detract from the unity of consciousness. Left to its own devices, consciousness seems happy to just experience one thing after the next. (72)

All brains–and persons–may be split to one or another degree. Each of us may live, even now, in a fluid state of split and overlapping subjectivity. Whether or not this seems plausible to you may not be the point. Another part of your brain may see the matter differently. (75)

The fact that the universe is illuminated where you stand–that your thoughts and moods and sensations have a qualitative character in this moment–is a mystery, exceeded only by the mystery that there should be something rather than nothing in the first place. Although science may ultimately show us how to truly maximize human wellbeing, it may still fail to dispel the fundamental mystery of our being itself. That doesn’t leave much scope for conventional religious beliefs, but it does offer a deep foundation for a contemplative life. Many truths about ourselves will be discovered in consciousness directly or not discovered at all. (79)

Chapter 3: The Riddle of the Self

Whatever we acquire in life gets dispersed. Our bodies age. Our relationships fall away. Even the most intense pleasures last only a few moments. And every morning, we are chased out of bed by our thoughts. (83)

Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents. And the only thing relevant to the question of personal identity is psychological continuity from one moment to the next. (89)

Without continually resurrecting the feeling of anger, it is impossible to stay angry for more than a few moments… Notice that suddenly paying attention to something else–something that no longer supports your current emotion–allows for a new state of mind. Observe how quickly the clouds can part. These are genuine glimpses of freedom. (99)