Waking Up - Guided meditation with Sam Harris

I'm just getting started but I've waited a long time. Waking Up peaked my interest in meditation and I have no doubt this app will be a great tool. Thanks, Sam.

Good to see you hear @samharrisofficial. I am a big fan of your work and I absutely love the UI/UX of your app. Excited to give this a try!

Congratulations on the app. Super excited it's finally here as I'm sure you are too. I have an Android but my wife has an iPhone. I'm a patron of the podcast. Can I use the link now to get on my wife's iPhone and then again later when ready for Android to get the app on my phone?

@samharrisofficial - love this app (and all of your work), but if there's one thing I think you could tweak, it's the logo. Any thoughts on making it a little less cluttered? The bottom of the logo has a lot going on in a small amount of space (which looks fine when not a logo, but since it's the first thing you see, every day, it's worth considering). P.S. Come back to Sydney when you can ❤

The lessons on free will are amazing.

Pros:

Nice clean interface, good meditation guidance. Doesn't treat you like a child like many other mediation apps.

Cons:

Not much content yet as just released.

Very impressed by this app so far! 🎧

Not available for android 😕

@samharrisofficial I've read Waking Up (I found the split hemisphere problem to be fascinating) and The Moral Landscape ("hurting to prevent further harm" changed my life dramatically, it essentially unlocked my potential, finally giving me a way to incorporate cruelty into my ahimsa orientated morality) as well as listened to dozens of your podcasts, however I still find these breathing apps a waste of time. Several years ago, I discovered Eckhart Tolle which had a profound impact on me, and I threw myself into the deep end of that practice, and was able to completely distance myself from the rat race and the immediate suffering, violence, and abuse that was thrown upon me against my will. However, all these sit down and breathe things I find to waste my time, just like how I find listening to Eckhart Tolle now a waste of time, as I can already detach from suffering and control my attention quite well. Paulo Coelho has written that meditation for him is his archery practice. I've given the first two days of your app a go, but found it just as useless as the other apps in the scene. In your introduction to the app, you said that once you achieve the ability of "mindfulness" then it is a skill that doesn't go away (like the knowledge of the illuminated night sky). Could I have merely unlocked that skill with my Eckhart Tolle study 5 years ago? Or am I missing something here? From what I can tell, the benefits of meditation seem to skew towards certain big 5 personalities. If one has already have developed the skill to detach at will, to endure abuse stoically, then it seems better for them to act to solve identified problems than to let them linger in stillness (like using a combination of spontaneous and systemised thought, like journalling, questionnaires, and procedural planning), as well as to gain ether-like meta awareness by doing the routines that consistently produce that state for them (say running, looking at the stars, or having a slumber), and that being still when the situation is beckoning for action is a mistake. Perhaps Americans may be more high strung than Australians, and overwork themselves too much, as the lack of success I see most often among my Australian circles, is not too-much-action (which antidote is stillness and calmness), but too-little-action (which antidote is more diligence). It seems that meditation/stillness/mindfulness is always packaged as this "be all do all for absolutely everyone" where it seems to me, that certain demographics may achieve the proposed benefits better from other means, or gain no benefits from it, yet no one talks about such limitations, and I don't understand why.

A phenomenal start - can't wait to see where this gets to.

Pros:

Life-changing content - especially love the lessons.

Cons:

The microphone or pitch of voice used is quite different in diff segments - meaning you need to adjust volume.

So long as it performs when purchased it will be an excellent potable tool

Pros:

Quality of the neuroscientists research and presentation

Cons:

Pricing index being lowered would increase saleability