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Peter Attia MD#34 – Sam Harris, Ph.D.: The transformative power of mindfulness
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CHAPTERS
- 0:04 – 7:51
Intro and Peter's first glimpse of presence
Peter introduces Sam Harris and recounts the epiphany he had at a stripped-down rehab facility, where he felt present for the first time. He describes the call with Sam that followed and how the Waking Up app grew out of it.
- •Sam Harris is introduced as a neuroscientist, author and creator of the Waking Up app
- •Peter describes feeling truly present after about 10 days without stimulus
- •He asked Sam whether this was a glimpse of what mindfulness offers
- •Sam recommended other apps too, including Ten Percent Happier
- 7:51 – 18:42
Concentration vs. mindfulness meditation
Sam defines the two basic types of meditation: concentration on a single object, and mindfulness or Vipassana, which is choiceless awareness. He explains why thought is the obstacle and why no object of attention is boring. Peter shares his walking-meditation discovery.
- •Being lost in thought is the default state and the obstacle in meditation
- •Concentration practice aims to exclude thought and can produce bliss
- •Mindfulness can be applied to any experience
- •Boredom is simply a lack of attention
- •Concentration is intrinsically pleasurable but its states are impermanent
- 18:42 – 25:53
Pain, suffering and the meaning of well-being
Peter explains why happiness and mindfulness now occupy more of his thinking about longevity. Sam separates pain from suffering and says he prefers talking about well-being and flourishing over happiness. He also notes that negative emotions have a short half-life once you stop ruminating.
- •Peter says longevity means little if you are miserable
- •Meditation doesn't remove physical pain but changes the relationship to it
- •Anticipation and resistance create suffering on top of sensation
- •Sam prefers well-being and flourishing to a narrow idea of happiness
- •Negative emotion fades quickly when you are not lost in thought
- 25:53 – 30:33
Watching anger fade and the dream analogy
Peter tells how he tested the half-life of anger after being bumped in New York. Sam says anger controls you only while you are identified with its thoughts, and compares this to dreaming without knowing it.
- •Peter observed anger vanish within seconds
- •Without metacognition you become the thought
- •Sam compares identification with thought to being in a dream
- •Waking from it feels like waking from something pathological
- 30:33 – 41:40
Why humans ruminate: language and evolution
Prompted by David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water", Peter asks whether other species ruminate. Sam says language drives abstract thought and that evolution doesn't care about well-being. He thinks constant inner narration likely begins with children internalizing speech.
- •Language underlies abstract thought, culture and civilization
- •Dogs likely have recognition and emotion without conscious thoughts of past and future
- •Peter cites Seneca, Shakespeare and Pascal on imagination and distraction
- •Evolution is indifferent to our well-being
- •Inner speech may originate from kids narrating as if to a parent
- 41:40 – 54:15
Mindfulness hacks, eating and anger with family
Peter and Sam discuss using traffic and parenting moments to practice mindfulness, and savoring experience instead of living in fast-forward. Sam explains how attention changes the experience of treats, and how he works at letting go of anger with his family. They also swap reframing hacks, such as listening to podcasts in traffic or empathizing with customer service workers.
- •Peter uses traffic and his son's tantrums as mindfulness tools
- •Paying close attention can reveal that desired pleasures are less pleasant than expected
- •The video game boss-fight analogy: recover from anger faster each time
- •Sam's daughters flag his anger early and he lets go sooner
- •Reframing hacks work even without mindfulness
- 54:15 – 59:12
Learning hard skills and the case for silent retreats
Peter compares mindfulness to relearning movement after a back injury and learning to swim as an adult. He asks about retreats. Sam says a week to 10 days is the shortest he recommends without caveat, because the first three days are hardest.
- •Peter describes moving from unconscious incompetence toward competence
- •He found mindfulness harder than either the back injury or swimming
- •Sam recommends a retreat of a week to 10 days
- •The first three days are the hardest and a longer retreat makes surrender likelier
- 59:12 – 1:14:31
Sam's Outward Bound solo and first MDMA experience
Sam recalls a miserable three-day solitary period on Outward Bound at 16, when others found it profound. He then describes the MDMA experience at 18 that showed him consciousness without self-concern, and the two discuss the neurobiology and caution about neurotoxicity.
- •Sam spent his solo fantasizing about leaving, while others reported profound happiness
- •Earlier psychedelic experiences gave him no framework for lasting change
- •MDMA showed him a state free of self-concern and zero-sum envy
- •Sam and Peter urge caution about toxicity and frequency of MDMA use
- 1:14:31 – 1:24:02
Metta practice and reframing: compassion for everyone
Sam describes loving-kindness meditation as a practice that trains both a state and a trait. He extends the framing idea to compassion for difficult people, using Saddam Hussein as an example, and says compassion doesn't rule out protecting society.
- •Metta works by concentrating on well-wishing, starting with a loved one and moving to neutral people and enemies
- •Framing changes interpretation, as with the customer service worker or the driver who cuts you off
- •Everyone was once a child who didn't choose their genes or parents
- •Compassion is compatible with imprisoning dangerous people
- 1:24:02 – 1:34:53
Moral luck: prison visits, texting and driving, and Nick's death
Peter describes the Step to the Line game at a maximum-security prison and a friend who nearly slipped into the same path. Sam introduces moral luck and the unlucky driver who kills someone while texting. Peter reflects on the driver who killed his friend Nick.
- •Step to the Line shows how differently inmates and volunteers started life
- •Sam names the philosophical idea of moral luck
- •Texting while driving separates ordinary people from tragedy only by luck
- •Peter realized he never considered what the driver who killed his friend was going through
- 1:34:53 – 1:46:43
Grief, anticipatory dread and well-being that survives solitude
Peter asks how to help a patient who, after losing a dog, dreads the deaths of his other dogs. Sam explains that suffering comes from unrecognized thought and that meditation lets well-being survive solitude and impermanence. They discuss whether people could stumble into mindfulness alone.
- •Absence is already tolerated whenever a loved one leaves the room
- •Suffering arises from thinking without knowing you are thinking
- •Meditators can be content in solitude, unlike most people in confinement
- •Spontaneous discovery of mindfulness is possible but unlikely without a map
- 1:46:43 – 2:00:19
Vipassana, Dzogchen and the illusion of the self
Sam distinguishes Vipassana, which investigates impermanence, selflessness and unsatisfactoriness, from Dzogchen, a non-dualistic path that starts from recognizing that consciousness has no center. He says goal-seeking framings of mindfulness can mislead.
- •Vipassana uses non-judgmental awareness to see impermanence, selflessness and unsatisfactoriness
- •The sense of a subject behind the face is the starting point for everyone
- •Dzogchen points directly to the egolessness already present in ordinary consciousness
- •Sam contrasts this with the Burmese framing of rubbing two sticks together to build momentum
- 2:00:19 – 2:12:39
Pleasant states versus ethics, and a commitment not to lie
Peter asks whether people should meditate for states or traits. Sam says pleasant meditative states can't be the point and that gurus and suicide bombers show ecstasy can be unethical. He describes his commitment to honesty, formed at 18, and its effect on his relationships.
- •Meditation's value is in a changed relationship to experience, not in transient pleasure
- •Pleasant states can coexist with unethical behavior
- •Contemplative tools should be anchored to ethics
- •Sam committed to not lying after a college course on the ethics of lying
- •Honesty makes praise more meaningful and invites honest feedback
- 2:12:39 – 2:18:36
Honesty in politics and the cost of public dishonesty
Peter asks whether a politician could pledge never to lie. Sam says dishonesty should carry reputational cost and that he sees the lack of such cost around Trump as the most dysfunctional part of the phenomenon.
- •Sam says dishonesty should exact a massive reputational cost in politics
- •He describes Trump's supporters as not holding him to a standard of honesty
- •He compares this to professional wrestling being understood as fake
- •Sam contrasts it with past cases like Gary Hart
- •Peter says the new element is that lying is now accepted
- 2:18:36 – 2:39:05
Raising daughters, Sam's books and forgiveness in public life
Sam explains how kids can be taught to meditate and how he teaches his daughters about framing and expectation. He previews his book projects and discusses cancel culture, apologies, forgiveness and whether violent behavior might be curable.
- •Sam's wife teaches meditation to children as young as five
- •Sam teaches his daughters that expectation is a poor guide and that you can suffer once rather than twice
- •His planned books include a podcast digest and "Making Sense"
- •Sam argues a sincere apology must come with a believable path of change
- •He suggests understanding the brain bases of behavior, as in Charles Whitman's tumor, would reduce blame
- 2:39:05 – 2:43:46
Where to find Waking Up and closing thanks
Peter and Sam wrap up by pointing listeners to Sam's website and the Waking Up app. They thank each other, and Peter reads his standard closing.
- •Sam's work is at samharris.org and the app is at wakingup.com
- •The app is now available on both Apple and Android
- •Peter thanks Sam for the impact on his thinking about suffering
- •Sam congratulates Peter on starting the podcast
