# Waking Up

- Author: [Sam Harris](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris.md)
- Quotes: 8
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up

## Quotes

> Happiness and suffering, however extreme, are mental events. The mind depends upon the body, and the body upon the world, but everything good or bad that happens in your life must appear in consciousness to matter. This fact offers ample opportunity to make the best of bad situations—changing your perception of the world is often as good as changing the world—but it also allows a person to be miserable even when all the material and social conditions for happiness have been met. During the normal course of events, your mind will determine the quality of your life.

p. 204 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/happiness-and-suffering.md)

> Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion.

p. 54 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/consciousness-is-the.md)

> The conventional sense of self is an illusion—and [] spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment. There are logical and scientific reasons to accept this claim, but recognizing it to be true is not a matter of understanding these reasons. Like many illusions, the sense of self disappears when closely examined, and this is done through the practice of meditation.

p. 82 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/the-conventional-sense.md)

> We wouldn't attempt to meditate, or engage in any other contemplative practice, if we didn't feel that something about our experience needed to be improved. But here lies one of the central paradoxes of spiritual life, because this very feeling of dissatisfaction causes us to overlook the intrinsic freedom of consciousness in the present. As we have seen, there are good reasons to believe that adopting a practice like meditation can lead to positive changes in one's life. But the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—and to seek such freedom, as though it were a future state to be attained through effort, is to reinforce the chains of one's apparent bondage in each moment.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/we-wouldnt-attempt.md)

> Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.

p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/although-the-insights.md)

> I never made more effort than I did when practicing under U Pandita. But most of this effort arose from the very illusion of bondage to the self that I was seeking to overcome. The model of this practice is that one must climb the mountain so that freedom can be found at the top. But the self is already an illusion, and that truth can be glimpsed directly, at the mountain's base or anywhere else along the path. One can then return to this insight, again and again, as one's sole method of meditation—thereby arriving at the goal in each moment of actual practice.

p. 126 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/i-never-made.md)

> The feeling that we call "I" seems to define our point of view in every moment, and it also provides an anchor for popular beliefs about souls and freedom of will. And yet this feeling, however imperturbable it may appear at present, can be altered, interrupted, or entirely abolished.

p. 83 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/the-feeling-that.md)

> The self that does not survive scrutiny is the subject of experience in each present moment—the feeling of being a thinker of thoughts inside one's head, the sense of being an owner or inhabitant of a physical body, which this false self seems to appropriate as a kind of vehicle. Even if you don't believe such a homunculus exists—perhaps because you believe, on the basis of science, that you are identical to your body and brain rather than a ghostly resident therein—you almost certainly feel like an internal self in almost every waking moment. And yet, however one looks for it, this self is nowhere to be found. It cannot be seen amid the particulars of experience, and it cannot be seen when experience itself is viewed as a totality. However, its absence can be found—and when it is, the feeling of being a self disappears.

p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sam-harris/waking-up/the-self-that.md)