How Best to Mine Diamonds

     "my goal is to pluck the diamond from the dunghill of esoteric religion. There is a diamond there, and I have devoted a fair amount of my life to contemplating it, but getting it in hand requires that we remain true to the deepest principles of scientific skepticism and make no obeisance to tradition."
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

     The general idea of the above statement resonates. Harris would, of course, ridicule a religious person examining science WHILE remaining true to the deepest principles of her religion. 
     From my understanding, to plumb the depths of any discipline, one must completely immerse oneself in that discipline "with an open mind" - be it learning to speak French, play the piano, or pharmacology. Each discipline has its own internal logic and set of rules. This can, and should be done, without "parking your brains at the door before you enter". There's far greater clarity with direct perception than in today's "gold standard" of scientific skepticism.
     Immersive learning does call for psychological flexibility ie letting go of, if only temporarily, dogmatic rigidity (a psychological affliction in its own right). Huston Smith studied several of the world's major spiritual traditions (Buddhism, Islam, and others) by immersing himself in each for years at a time. Perhaps most inspiring are clergy, like Sister Elaine MacInnes, who while remaining a Catholic nun, is also a Zen Buddhist roshi (master), the highest level of teacher in Zen Buddhism.

Peter Essick, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Mindfulness Meditation & Human Depth in the 21st Century

     "... when you take away all the religious stuff, the world's spiritual traditions have some profound things to say about the art of being human.

     ... self-transcendence - the experience of losing the sense that there's a subject in the center of experience. And when you lose that feeling of self, then in some basic sense, only the world remains. ... Given that Christians, and Hindus, and Buddhists, and Muslims, and even atheists like myself, have this (type of peak) experience in a variety of contexts, we know that this experience can't be data in favor of any religious interpretation. We know that there's a deeper principle at work, and this deeper principle has to be understood in 21st century terms that are non-sectarian, that don't endorse any kind of sectarian tribalism. And that's the challenge I see for us - to get out of the religion business and to talk about the full range of human experience in terms that are intellectually responsible and honest and therefore non-divisive.

     At age 18, I had a profound drug-induced experience that I couldn't forget which was that life could be far better than I was tending to live it. It became very clear, as I did some reading and got my first taste of meditation practice, that the problem was my own mind, the problem was how I was unable to pay attention in the present moment.
     Meditation can be an immensely powerful tool for the mitigation of psychological suffering." Sam Harris

        Sam Harris, author of "Tame Your Mind (No Religion Required)" interviewed by Mary Hines on CBC Radio's "Tapestry": http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/

Saad Faruque