Why this video could improve any forum on the Net

Billy Shears

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Jul 27, 2015
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But then again, thats just my opinion :)
 

amirm

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I hope when I have as much gray hair as he has, that I have half the wisdom he is sharing :). Don't know the man but very nice video to watch. And it is my opinion that the second wisdom he shares (being happy even in the midst of unhappiness) is a great solution to the first problem :).

A few months ago I just decided to be happy around the house. Literally not letting things impact me much. The effect on myself was modest. But the effect on my wife was profound. Her happiness index shot through the roof! That in turn had an amazing effect on me. I am going to practice what he says (to smile in a mirror when you first wake up) to see if I can amp this up even more.
 

Billy Shears

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Jul 27, 2015
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I hope when I have as much gray hair as he has, that I have half the wisdom he is sharing :). Don't know the man but very nice video to watch. And it is my opinion that the second wisdom he shares (being happy even in the midst of unhappiness) is a great solution to the first problem :).

A few months ago I just decided to be happy around the house. Literally not letting things impact me much. The effect on myself was modest. But the effect on my wife was profound. Her happiness index shot through the roof! That in turn had an amazing effect on me. I am going to practice what he says (to smile in a mirror when you first wake up) to see if I can amp this up even more.

Together with Ram Dass (and Alan Watts before him) he is one of the early propagators of the practice of Zen in the West....
 

NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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We all react differently to suffering and pain. Some feel deeply involved in the emotional crash, others escape it the best they can.

There is no magic cake; we are who we are with everyone else around.

* In times of great humor I expressed, I could also see the distress in the few around me.
And in times of great sadness I expressed, I could also see people leaving me, and very few remaining. It's a more lonely world.

It's a balancing act between our own modes of expression and the others around us own's interpretations/reactions.
We adjust between, we accommodate each other the best we can so that we flow peacefully on the same calm waters.

I think.
 

Billy Shears

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2015
255
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We all react differently to suffering and pain. Some feel deeply involved in the emotional crash, others escape it the best they can.

There is no magic cake; we are who we are with everyone else around.

* In times of great humor I expressed, I could also see the distress in the few around me.
And in times of great sadness I expressed, I could also see people leaving me, and very few remaining. It's a more lonely world.

It's a balancing act between our own modes of expression and the others around us own's interpretations/reactions.
We adjust between, we accommodate each other the best we can so that we flow peacefully on the same calm waters.

I think.

It is quite a revelation when you realize that although pain is very real, suffering is largely made up by the mind. Its often resisting the experince you are having right now.

A good example to practise on: Being stuck in traffic is not the Problem. Its wishing you where already at the place you are trying to get too thats causing distress. If you come at it like a Zen master you will still be stuck in traffic for just as long but you wont be suffering because there is no resistence to the experience you are having.
 

NorthStar

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It is quite a revelation when you realize that although pain is very real, suffering is largely made up by the mind. Its often resisting the experince you are having right now.

A good example to practise on: Being stuck in traffic is not the Problem. Its wishing you where already at the place you are trying to get too thats causing distress. If you come at it like a Zen master you will still be stuck in traffic for just as long but you wont be suffering because there is no resistence to the experience you are having.

Valid reply; the suffering we create in our own world (brain).

The values we give to our lives, and that we stand by; the more importance we give them the more "distress" we suffer when someone breaks them, I think.
It is the level of intensity in the meaning of life we attach and believe in that is creating our force and our downfall. ...I think.

We're all different; but I'll give you an example(s) for discussion advancement:

- Your 12-year old daughter gets hit by a drunk driver and she died at the hospital few hours later.
- You work hard all your life, and you have good insurances, and you have a heart attack, and it leads to physical failures, and there was a small close in the insurance paper that wasn't covered. You lost all your life savings and you cannot afford a lawyer, and you lost your home and your wife.
- You are a successful stock broker and financial adviser; many of your clients lost all their life savings and they blame you for the crash (stock market).
- You are young, 25-years old, you work real hard as a logger, and someone steals your full season paycheck.
- You have a major surgery, and you lose both eyes and ears.

We're all different, and depending of our own values and the level we attach to them; how we cope with some of those circumstances will define the degree of "suffering". Yes, it's in our brain, and it's also real.

I can give you more examples, and the level of "suffering" is proportional to each brain of each person in each circumstance.
If some people's brain are above all calamities of life, and that their emotional state are under total control; perhaps the "suffering" is less intensified...maybe, but I doubt it.

Here we have it easy; we are older, wiser, financially comfortable, living in peaceful zones of the planet, relatively healthy for retirees, and we eat good and exercise well...physically (sex) and mentally (music listening). We are the elite, the crop of the cream. We don't suffer much at all, and when we see close friends suffering around us, we understand to the extent of our own "suffering" experience in life.

We're all different, and the intensity of our joy and pain is related to our life's values and emotional uniqueness in real experience.

It's like that with music listening; the music recordings we like, the gear we use, the movies we watch, the screen where we see them, and all that jazz.

* That older folk in that video; I like him. :b
 

DaveC

Industry Expert
Nov 16, 2014
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Buddhism is amazing, imo it has the potential to make the world a better place, not just forums ;)

Buddhism can be so many things, but at it's basis it's a way to understand the world and how we relate to it in a conscious manner, which gives us the opportunity to evolve concsiously instead of by trial and error. Unconscious evolution often involves doing the same harmful thing over and over until it becomes more painful to continue the behavior rather than change it.

Buddhism also teaches us "right view", without understanding the world we make decisions based on ignorance, which leads to pain. Pain is a given in this world, it's unavoidable. Suffering, however, is optional. Buddhism helps us understand the nature of suffering, and provides a way to escape it, often referred to as enlightenment. One key to understanding suffering is the fact that we live in samsara, which is the cycle of suffering, and the suffering is caused by our attraction or aversion to worldly phenomenon. It's easy to see how aversion causes suffering, if we experience something we have an aversion to we wish it would be different and we suffer. Its harder to understand attraction also causes suffering and many people resist it, but it's true. The way attraction makes us suffer is the impermanent nature of phenomenon will eventually take away that which we are attracted to. Whether it's material goods, relationships, even our own human life... eventually it will come to an end, and if we hold attachment to these things we will suffer. It's like 2 sides of the same coin... The unfortunate truth is we are conditioned to either be attracted to or have aversion for physical phenomenon, which makes the nature of the world that of suffering. To those who hold strong attractions and aversions the world is hell, and only has the nature of suffering. For those who are capable of maintaining equanimity, it is Nirvana. So, Nirvana and enlightenment is not a destination, it is simply a way of being. We can all choose this for ourselves, right now. There is nothing you need to attain to achieve enlightenment, it is our basic nature. Ignorance is what keeps it from us.
 

GaryProtein

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Jul 25, 2012
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I'm glad you guys had the patience to listen to the video and write what you thought.

I tried watching and found the guy incredibly boring and slow to express his ideas.

It was at most a two minute talk that took over 12 minutes.

Give me the goods. I'm not interested in the poetic and flowery details.
 

NorthStar

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I'm glad you guys had the patience to watch the video and write what you thought.

I tried watching and found the guy incredibly boring and deathly slow to express his ideas.

He's a young dude Gary (@ 76) and that video is only 10 minutes of your life. :b
Sure, he doesn't look like an audiophile, but zen what does an audiophile look like. ...In the brain? :b

* I saw some cool videos recently; of young women with the bodies of goddesses (nice background music ? too). They aren't into Buddha but into Yoga. :b

? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsugen_Bernard_Glassman
 

GaryProtein

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It wasn't that he was a certain age or that he wasn't an audiophile, he simply took a very long time to express himself. I think he should have had notes to remind him of what he wanted to express. It would have moved faster and been more interesting.
 

NorthStar

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It wasn't that he was a certain age or that he wasn't an audiophile, he simply took a very long time to express himself. I think he should have had notes to remind him of what he wanted to express. It would have moved faster and been more interesting.

I know, I'm simply floating in the moment; just like he himself does sitting on that bench at the park and smoking his big cigar and talking to his interviewer with nonchalance.
...In the moment, unprepared, improvising as it comes. Like living in the streets without knowing what the next minute will bring.

Us we don't live like that; we already know what we'll be doing tomorrow, roughly. :b

* In audio forums we all have our own level of security, knowledge, comfort zone...because it's the hobby we like...listening to the music we like from the gear we like in the room we like with the people we like around the people we like to share with. That's why we're here; to enjoy the company and have fun. Plus we can talk about other stuff too, stuff that touches us as well; the universe, the galaxy, the planets, the all other subjects @ WBF.
And this one, is another good one. :b ...Only twelve minutes.

Movies are like books; they are someone's vision. Musics are like people's vision; they are their compositions from their soul and reaching ours. Paintings are ...
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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Seattle, WA
I'm glad you guys had the patience to listen to the video and write what you thought.

I tried watching and found the guy incredibly boring and slow to express his ideas.

It was at most a two minute talk that took over 12 minutes.

Give me the goods. I'm not interested in the poetic and flowery details.
Truth to be told I used YouTube control to watch it at 1.5x speed. :)
 

Billy Shears

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2015
255
1
150
I'm glad you guys had the patience to listen to the video and write what you thought.

I tried watching and found the guy incredibly boring and slow to express his ideas.

It was at most a two minute talk that took over 12 minutes.

Give me the goods. I'm not interested in the poetic and flowery details.

You will find that most Zen monks are as cool as a cucumber....At the same time there are plenty of videos about this subject that could blow your mind in 5 min flat.

The reason i posted it was because i think the world would be abetter place if everyone took their own thoughtprocess with a pinch of salt. And his point relates to Forums in particular.
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Gary

I can understand at times the need to go the conclusion but there is also joy in the road that leads to it ... We can't reduce reading a book to go the last page and read the ending .. IMHO it was a very good video. See myself applying some of its teaching.
 

Billy Shears

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2015
255
1
150
Buddhism is amazing, imo it has the potential to make the world a better place, not just forums ;)

Buddhism can be so many things, but at it's basis it's a way to understand the world and how we relate to it in a conscious manner, which gives us the opportunity to evolve concsiously instead of by trial and error. Unconscious evolution often involves doing the same harmful thing over and over until it becomes more painful to continue the behavior rather than change it.

Buddhism also teaches us "right view", without understanding the world we make decisions based on ignorance, which leads to pain. Pain is a given in this world, it's unavoidable. Suffering, however, is optional. Buddhism helps us understand the nature of suffering, and provides a way to escape it, often referred to as enlightenment. One key to understanding suffering is the fact that we live in samsara, which is the cycle of suffering, and the suffering is caused by our attraction or aversion to worldly phenomenon. It's easy to see how aversion causes suffering, if we experience something we have an aversion to we wish it would be different and we suffer. Its harder to understand attraction also causes suffering and many people resist it, but it's true. The way attraction makes us suffer is the impermanent nature of phenomenon will eventually take away that which we are attracted to. Whether it's material goods, relationships, even our own human life... eventually it will come to an end, and if we hold attachment to these things we will suffer. It's like 2 sides of the same coin... The unfortunate truth is we are conditioned to either be attracted to or have aversion for physical phenomenon, which makes the nature of the world that of suffering. To those who hold strong attractions and aversions the world is hell, and only has the nature of suffering. For those who are capable of maintaining equanimity, it is Nirvana. So, Nirvana and enlightenment is not a destination, it is simply a way of being. We can all choose this for ourselves, right now. There is nothing you need to attain to achieve enlightenment, it is our basic nature. Ignorance is what keeps it from us.

This is very well put.... Ironically there is a massive misconception as to what enlightenment is.
It is nothing more (and nothing less) then seeing things as they realy are....
 

dallasjustice

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Apr 12, 2011
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Bernie seems like quite the character. He has adopted a viewpoint which excludes other different views, others refer to him as a guru, he can speak without say anything and he wears a funny hat. It all seems like more religion to me. Just my opinion . . . man. :D

I do agree that humor in bad situations is 100% necessary.
 
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Billy Shears

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2015
255
1
150
Bernie seems like quite the character. He has adopted a viewpoint which excludes other different views, others refer to him as a guru, he can speak without say anything and he wears a funny hat. It all seems like more religion to me. Just my opinion . . . man. :D

I do agree that humor in bad situations is 100% necessary.

...Or maybe just speak without everyone understanding him ;)
 
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