And there still seems some , some residual mystery that , you know , at death , maybe something is gonna lift off the brain and go elsewhere , right ? So there's a sense of dualism , uh that ma many people have and obviously that that's supported by many religious beliefs . Um But this feeling it , it is a very peculiar starting point with the people feel that in a , in a they don't feel identical to their experience , right ?
You don't , most people don't feel identical to their bodies and they can imagine this , this is so the origin , the psychological origin and you know , the the folk psychological origin of , of a sense of that , there's , there might be a soul that could survive the death of the body . I mean , most people are , are what my friend Paul Bloom calls common sense dualist , right ? You , you , you're just the default expectation seems to be that whatever the relationship between the mind and the body , there's this , there's some promise of separability there , right ?
And now they're gonna pay attention to something , they're gonna pay attention to the breath or the sounds . And it's from the point of view of being a locus of attention that is now aiming attention strategically at an object like the breath um that there's this dualism that is set up and ultimately the ultimate promise of meditation . I mean , there are really two levels at which you could be interested in , in meditation .
So the illusory of the self doesn't cut against any of those obvious facts . So the , the , the , the , the sense of self that is illusory .
So you're gonna lower your stress and you're gonna increase your focus and you're gonna , you know , stave off cortical thinning and there's all kinds of good things that science is saying meditation will , will give you . Um And none of that entails really drilling down on this paradoxical claim that the self is an illusion or , or , or anything else of that sort . But from my point of view , the real purpose of meditation and its real promise is not in this long list of , of benefits .
