Tim R

The root of Dukkha is a house of cards.

@TreyMoney @Terell Kirby Those aren't true Happiness or true Peace. Happiness and Peace don't depend on the circumstances. They're unconditional. Unconditional means "no matter what". If you stop resisting the cycle of "happiness and sadness" or "peace and war" and accept it as what it is, without the need for it to change, there is Peace and Happiness. This Peace and Happiness cannot be brought about by desiring them, for desire itself is a condition; "If I could stop resisting and accept the cycle of sadness and happiness completely, I would be truly happy". You see where this is going? Happiness and Peace are not human emotions. They are not a state either. They are simply what is. And what is, is unconditional. You can experience this in meditation, when you come to accept what is, as what is. Not trying to accept, not trying to stop rejecting, just be aware of what is. And you know, the great thing about meditation is that you don't even have to try to be aware. You are.

Not quite. Cause and effect imply separation. Dependent origination is about the recognition that everything hangs on everything else, simultaneously. That's why it is a circle, and not a linear sequence of events (even so, there would be no separation). Take one link away, and the entire chain is broken. In that sense, there aren't even any "links". Every link is dependent on the "previous" link, ad infinitum. There is no cause. "This arises, that becomes." (Idappaccayatā) Because "this" and "that" are identical, they depend on each other like the two ends of a stick; When I hold a stick by one end and lift it up from the ground, do you see how ludicrous it would be to think that the end I'm holding is the "cause" of the other end going up? It's one stick! moving as a unity. There is no such thing as "cause" and "effect". Exactly.

That's a pretty striking analogy, thank you for sharing. Beliefs are frighteningly pwoerful... I guess if belief dictates action, then I could look at my action and extrapolate, at least to some degree, what I believe.

That's quite normal, as we grow up, we can change a lot. Don't worry abut it, what you're describing sounds perfectly natural and healthy. Most adults view children differently, they are much more forgiving of their deviations in consciousness and experiences, but also somewhat condescending. They often don't regard the experience of children as quite valid, they just think "oh well, they're children, they're not developed yet, who cares". Something like that. What your dreams mean, only you can know. Try to find out if, and how these things still influence you today. Incompletely digested childhood experience still tends to manifest itself in some way in our so called "adult" selves.

@Mosess The "quality of beliefs" is belief...(?)

It's not Solipsism. Pratītyasamutpāda doesn't "result in" / imply / explain / justify Solipsism or really any kind of -"ism". Rather, it simply states how everything relies on / implies / creates everything else. "Solipsism" is is pure projection, belief and a concept, nowhere to be found in reality. The only relation one could draw between Solipsism and the Chain of Dependent Origination, is that it is a part of the Chain (although really, there are no "parts", since the chain describes implication and dependent / mutual arising) and thus a part of the creation of suffering.

@TaoNood Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing that vulnerable story with us?? what an entrance into the forum @Carl-Richard Could you elaborate a bit on that?

*nods furiously*

@DavyTee Because it's not the concept behind nonduality that can make you at peace. The concept behind nonduality isn't nonduality - or should I rather say, it is nonduality, but you're confusing the concept for nonduality instead of seeing that nonduality is also the concept. What you think nonduality to be, is not nonduality, is what I'm trying to say. Or maybe you just think that. You think that in order to understand nonduality, there's some missing piece you still have to "get". No. Get rid! of the damn puzzle pieces. And when there's no puzzle left, nonduality will be plain. It doesn't!!

Exactly! It doesn't! But unfortunately, many seem to regard it as that. Many answers are really just pointers, no answers as such. Agreed.

Please maintain a discussion free of discriminatory comments, or this thread will get locked.

My man... it's a fly, or some little particle. It just looks like it's violating inertia law. You're interpreting a bit too much into this barely visible spot that can easily be explained by simple phenomena. But you have to bring some more convincing/unexplainable footage to the table to seriously consider it to be a UFO.

yup indeed

@itachi uchiha Here's a few clips on his political views (+Hasan reacting to it). He tends to promote stage blue values when it comes to society and the individual, which can be, given that we are struggling to evolve towards green, regressive and holding us back. However, his stage blue values can be pretty helpful to integrate stage blue in yourself, because I think he himself is actually a rather honest and integrated version of blue. So it's a good a idea to use that if you yourself are lacking in stage blue, it certainly was (and still somewhat is?) the case for me when I started out listening to him. But I quickly realized that with JP, you have to carefully discern the wheat (healthy stage blue values like discipline, honesty, integrity, etc. ) from the chaff (enforced monogamy, "post-modern neo-marxists", exessive individualism, etc.). See, stuff like this is what I mean by chaff. Good analysis by Leo. I criticized some part of Leo's analysis that I regarded as not nuanced enough, check it out if you want, we had a nice little discussion. And if you're still intereseted, here's two pretty cool videos on JP by ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube.

@Yidaki Where did you get that from? Of course there is cosensus in science. Scientists agree more than they disagree. Almost all disagreement among scientists happens on the level of their ultra specific field of research. But on stuff like vaccination, there is consensus, there's no question whatsoever about this. That narrative you're referring to is, at least in the context of vaccination, pretty valid tho. As I said, there is consensus among scientists about the efficacy of vaccinations and that is undeniable - and there is powerful evidence.

I always tell people that his psychological and biblical lectures are pretty good and I recommend them, but better stay away from the political stuff... And watch out for political stuff in the psychology/biblical lectures.

Hmm I've watched it a few times now, and the easiest explanation I could come up with is that it's a fly that is rather close to the camera, like just a few feet away. Also, when it starts to make this jump it's the same moment where you've started to zoom, so that would make the movement seem faster than it actually is. I think that's the easiest explanation (Ockhams Razor).

Most flys can accelerate unbelievably quickly. Like, just normal flies, I'm not even talking about any exotic fly species or anything. To me it doesnt look like it violates any mechanical laws. And btw we're talking about flys here, you said "insects"; there are insects (fleas) that can jump with an acceleration that results in 300G force. Let that sink in...

I'm not quite sure if I know exactly what bright little spot you mean, but to me it looks like it's actually just some sort of insect (some fly?) that reflects the light from the house on the right (the one which isn't in the frame), that would explain why it moves and reflects light the way it does. Depending on how close it was to the camera it can appear to be bigger than it actually was.. It could also just be noise, the whole videos is rather noisy.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=7fb8e8014c90

@Happy Lizard https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf

Your desire to stop the cycle is part of the cycle. So the only way to stop the cycle is by realizing that there is no cycle - and mind you, this will neither be "achieved by you", nor will it "achieve anything for you". Who was born, who will die?

@Someone here Yes, existence has no context and is not located anywhere.

That's absolutely amazing, seriously. God damn I'm happy for you