Our sense of free will results from a failure to appreciate this: We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understan… - Sam Harris

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.

Our habitual identification with thought — that is, our failure to recognize thoughts *as thoughts,* as appearances in consciousness — is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one’s head.

Faith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering. Where certain actions cause no suffering at all, religious dogmatists still maintain that they are evil and worthy of punishment (sodomy, marijuana use, homosexuality, the killing of blastocysts, etc.). And yet, where suffering and death are found in abundance their causes are often deemed to be good (withholding funds for family planning in the third world, prosecuting nonviolent drug offenders, preventing stem-cell research, etc). This inversion of priorities not only victimizes innocent people and squanders scarce resources; it completely falsifies our ethics.

contemplatives in many traditions claim to experience extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while living in isolation for vast stretches of time.