Tim R

"Nothing is the same, everything is changed" She was born in 1869 and lived to be 112. This is crazy... I think we could learn a great deal from old people. Too bad that in western society, we see them mostly as a burden. They truly know about impermanence. I think age gives you some kind of wisdom which you can only get through age and no other technique would work. What do you think?

hmm idk man. I think whenever an organism tries to survive, there's ego. Albeit a very simple one.

What are we talking about exactly? Is the question whether plants perceive? Or is this thread becoming one of those "what is consciousness" discussions? Of course "there's no one home" also applies to plants, like with BipolarGrowth's analogy of the dream mother. There's no one home. Likewise with you, nobody home... Consciousness is, but nobody who is conscious.

@Eternal Unity What do you mean?

Of course plants are conscious. They have some very elaborate systems of perception, like for example graviception or photoception. Also, they are aware of sounds and even music. Plants communicate all kinds of things via chemicals through the air, think of the tobacco plant: there's a species of caterpillar who loves eating the leaves of young tobacco plants, and if he starts chewing on a plant, it will send out a bunch of chemicals that are called "phytohormones" (phyto=plant) to warn the other plants nearby and they receive this signal and as a result will produce chemicals which make the leaves bitter and inedible for the caterpillar. Plants are also aware of different kinds of stress, like when there isn't enough water around or when the sun is burning too hot and they have the most incredible systems of coping with these situations. And god only knows what is going on in the forest underneath the soil where the trees form communication and nutrient exchange networks of enormous sizes with different species of funghi (which aren't plants btw) and other trees. When I started to learn about plant physiology in university I was shocked to discover how sophisticated they actually are... plants aren't dumb or unconscious at all. Only because they don't scream or run away doesn't mean they aren't conscious.

Idk about you guys but he looks pretty happy to me humping the dude's hand. Watch a dog nut in a cup? Check✅ what am I doing with my life...

Inside the mind of a chess Grand Master...crazy

@Flowerfaeiry Preaching to the choir.. We're all sitting in the same boat. You are most definitely not the only one. But imagine what it would be like if you would be a "normie"? What would you want then? Life wouldn't necessarily be easier, you'd just have different problems and struggles. You would worry about mundane things, you'd be stressed out by marginal problems, you wouldn't know why people behave the way the do, you wouldn't see life as a game, etc.. Don't forget to go easy on yourself, people forget to do that all the time. There's no hurry in this game

We love you too❤?

I'm curious about the current situations in different places all over the world. How severe is it? What measures have been taken? What is the general public opinion about your governments way of dealing with the pandemic? How does this influence the national or local politics?

Great movie. I'm watching it right now and Dogen's master just said "just as enlightenment is infinite, practice is also infinite. Enlightenment and practice are inextricably linked." Thought I'd share that with you

Yoo this is crazy, who knew that chimps were so intelligent?

Existence is Love

Who claimed that it will? The cardboard sign of some 19 y/o hippie who demonstrates in front of a butchery? And btw, the video is about eating less meat, not going vegan. My point that the video is misleading is still valid, because instead of recognizing excessive meat consumption as a non-marginal contributor to the crisis, the video pretends that it's not a problem by setting up straw man arguments which it then knocks down by misinterpreting the science and thereby tries to make you feel good about it by subsequently scapegoating other industries as even worse. Which is true, but only because something else is more horrible than what you do, it doesn't mean that you can keep doing your only less horrible thing. Simply not true. In some cases it might be the result of an overly emotional reaction, but definitely not always. There are many reasons for why one could decide to go vegan.

@Kross You probably have an image of yourself of which you subconsciously know that it's not how you actually are (wise, spiritually evolved, integrous, etc). To start working on yourself would reveal your level of development to you, which you of course don't want to see and admit. So instead you do nothing, in oder to maintain your image of yourself. So what you do is get to work, face yourself and then accept yourself the way you are. Maybe lacking in integrity, maybe foolish, maybe undisciplined, whatever. And once again, Love is the answer. Loving yourself, even though it may be tough Love, will get you to where you need to be. It's okay to be foolish. We all are, I promise Can you say to yourself: "look man, I know you've had your fair share of struggle in life and I understand you. I feel you. I know that you didn't know any better at the time. I accept your lack of integrity and your foolishness, because I know that this is all you could do, and I don't expect more of you than who you are." And then you get to work, because you know that that is the love you need. Like when you have a house which quite literally lacks integrity, and it's falling apart everywhere, the walls are crumbling, the windows are broken and it's obvious that what this house is in need of is: Love! Somebody who cares. Somebody who accepts the house as lacking, as dysfunctional and broken. And who doesn't go banging the house with a sledgehammer shouting "oh you sh*thole of a house! why are you like that?!" Somebody who recognizes the parts of the house where some repair is due, who then doesn't avert his gaze from the seeming ugliness of its dysfunctions, but who then starts fixing what he can fix. And if he doesn't know how to fix a certain part of the house, he gets help from somebody else. But he isn't ashamed for not knowing what to do, because he can say to himself exactly the same thing as to the house: "it's okay to be foolish. It's okay not to know. I accept that, too." You can fix it, don't worry. It's your ego-mind that spreads doubt. Do what you can do, don't try to do everything at once, and remember to love yourself, in whatever ways necessary.

The video is pretty misleading. Especially the part with the methane, he set up a straw man (and a pretty bad one at that).. Yes, carbon is not the problem, methane is the problem, so even if the amount of carbon stays the same, the molecular compound in which it's bound doesn't. Whether it's bound as CO2 or CH4 is extremely important. Basically this whole video was like: "yeah, meat it pretty f*cking bad, but hey! look at this! look at that! these things are even worse!! so don't worry guys, let's keep eating meat because it's not the worst thing we can do"

HOLY SH*T

This video is so misleading, when the dude talks about the problem of methane he starts addressing the carbon cycle (carbon isn't even a problem!!), but the methane is a problem as a greenhouse gas. The science on that is clear. It's much more reactive in the atmosphere than CO2. He simply put up a straw man just to knock it down with false interpretations. Yes, the amount of carbon within the cycle stays the same, but the amount of carbon bound as methane (CH4) increases with mass cow farming. It's no accident that the melting of permafrost is such a danger, because arctic methane emission will release a lot of methane which will speed up the process exponentially.

His spiritual asceticism was basically the pendulum swinging into the other direction...until he realized the middle way

Very nice. Sounds like you really got the point

Lol you think those are weird? You ain't seen nothing yet. Look at the creatures you find in the deep sea, miles and miles below the surface, where there is no sunlight and the water pressure so high it would easily crush a high school bus into the size of your desk... try to survive in such a place and see how you're shape ends up looking? Or look at electron microscopic images of insects. It doesn't get much weirder than that, really... https://www.google.com/search?q=electron+microscope+images+insects

Yes The image in the mirror is the pure mirror "plus" its content. "Pure awareness" and "content of awareness" are the same, appearing to be different. But they are always and only the mirror. This awareness needs a reflection to "see itself". Which is why "ego", as a state of self-reflection is actually crucial for becoming aware of the fact that you are the mirror.

There's two types of motivation for me; what I call positive motivation, which is motivation for doing something because I want to do it, and then there's negative motivation, which is motivation for doing something because you don'T want to do something else. I struggle a lot with procrastination, it has gotten a little bit better but still, it's extremely difficult for me. And when I procrastinate, the motivation for my action is negative motivation. So in procrastinating, I do what I do not because I want to do it, but because I want to avoid doing something else. So this constant source of negative motivation is psychologically very taxing on me. It robs me of joy and the desire to do anything in life, including developing a life purpose. My question is: how do I reduce negative motivation? What's the source of procrastination? I've contemplated the second question many times but haven't found any meaningful answer. I guess it's a very individual problem. Maybe you guys can help me with some input.

Real and unreal are like two ends of the same stick. Reality is the stick. There is just the stick, which is a real illusion / an illusory reality. And furthermore, there is no stick, just....

What does Stage Coral even look like?