“A sign that your spiritual path is progressing, is that you have a even greater empathy for others. Not that you just become cold!” ~ Lama Choga

When I am unhappy I am a slave, when I am happy I am a servant of humanity Understanding this was like rubbing mud from my eyes and standing up with my arms outstretched and laughing loudly.

The "me" that judges "this is good, this is bad" is conditioned. You have to go further, beyond the conditioned mind to find true, unconditional freedom. This will be the beginning of the Non-returner journey. The view that the world or anything is good or bad is but a view. Enlightenment is the freedom from all views, which are only individual perspectives, lens that awareness can look through. This is not cold, it is only clear seeing, non-deluded seeing, which is the only true love as it is truly unconditional. Bless you 🌞💖

Gratitude 🙏

Very Nice Talk Lama Choga. It came from the Heart.

The planet I live on is the version of earth I manifest. I take responsibility for the reality I perceive. I see pain in the world, I control what I can control. My bubble within reality is rich with blessings. I work to grow that bubble out and bring others into it.

Thankyou Lama Choga this is exactly what I needed to hear today.🙏🙏🙏

Ty for teaching the community how to thoroughly be compassionate with our peers and ourselves, and that we can gain from our losses

I am currently a recovering opiate addict. I understand physical and mental suffering from addiction. I can skillfully interpret opiate addiction as a stand in for ALL addiction. I can learn how euphoria is paid for by its equal yet opposite reaction of intense suffering! Yin and yang much? When you are classified as an outcast, the so-called good and decent people in society, reveal a facet of themselves that they never show to their peers. We get to see a reality that is hidden from most people. What privilege, yet they are not afraid to show their true face, precisely because they know that nobody will believe us if we tell. That's like open season on the marginalised that everyone denies as they do it! How can they stop what they refuse to acknowledge? This is ego. This is samsara! We are all deeply addicted! 💜 🙏🧡

Nice! A new video just in time for my lunch break. Something that always brings me clarity about how to respond to the horrors of reality is the serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I think we are morally obliged to address suffering in the mundane world by actively intervening in worldly affairs to the extent of our range of influence. The less people trapped in lives of coarse suffering, the more people who have the freedom to engage with dharmas of their choosing. Its hard to pursue spirituality when your village is getting burned down by corporate mercenaries so a pit mine can be established on your landbase. Perhaps seeking liberation for all sentient beings by spending a lifetime in monastic retreat from worldly affairs is more effective on a cosmic scale. I can't claim to know. But I do know that if I'm meditating on a hillside and I hear the screams of a person in distress nearby, I 'm going to abandon the meditation and see what I can do to help.

Thank you. Very powerful. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Great respect for this authentic appearance. I will continue to follow it up- And ,as always; - thank You

Finding the beauty in our suffering is truly a transformative process. Lately, I've been suffering alongside my colleagues, but secretly, I've been praying so hard that they can finally see how they have directly contributed to their own suffering. All I can do is try my best to be a positive example and keep up with my practice. By modeling my own transformation, I pray that others observe that it is possible to be a better person. Thank you for this message, Lama 🙏💚

Every day I look forward to listening to your words of wisdom. Thank you so much for sharing Dear Lama Choga.

Sadhguru said you can either become wounded or wiser by life’s difficulties.

This was a beautiful teaching thank you

I went to a Zen monastery named Tassajara in California in 2011. It was life changing. I was in my late 20s and idealist but it was a taste of utopia. Communal cooking, cleaning, eating, meditation. The real world is suffering but the contrast made it even more special. I was young and times were good. Now I’ve experienced and felt suffering and have matured but I miss that feeling of optimism. The joy always ends in sadness. I then had a child and it was the best years of my life and also the scariest as the thought of him growing up and leaving the home feels like death. Anything that is good ends and the memories are that much more intense knowing that remembering them brings suffering but forgetting them means death. I’m one of the lucky ones who has lots of time and still time passes so quickly. I almost want to numb myself with trivial mainstream vices to not feel everything so intensely.

That's what I am learning right now. I tend to escape to a cold attitude during many learning experiences when ego gets too loud

Thank You so much 🙏🙏🙏

Thank you sir.

You are a kind man. Taking on the flood of those high "teachings" proliferating on the you tubes. I find them gross. "Yeah sure we really spirits having a human experience" They say. Yes ok....now why do you chose to let your false human form kick your butt so much? Those "spiritual" dream sellers can tell you all the lovely things that humans have come up with over all their acid trips, But have any of their followers learned sovereignty, or gained such an access to "the lovely things" that they gain independence? And that's why i love you. Wish you so much good so you can keep encouraging others to get ready , gear up and take the best trip of their lives. By the way, the time i spent perusing and contemplating your teachings, and the few words we shared, have helped me with my Lama Karma.

🌺 thank you so much

Karmapa Kyenno Karmapa Kyenno Karmapa Kyenno Yes, it’s all so true! Thank you! We all need to remind ourselves what the path is all about. We really must FEEL IT in our bones! If we take Milarepa as our example of how to turn the experiences of this temporary existence around and get to work on all those factors within us that is causing dissatisfaction and suffering, this life will not be wasted. The path of the Buddha Dharma is not a path of acquiring philosophical knowledge. It’s the true path to liberation from all those factors leading to imprisonment and suffering. There’s a very deep reason why the Buddha began teaching the way he did. Without a fundamental disgust for samsara and all its false promises we do not have a path yet! The insight into the dissatisfactory nature of samsara should be our motivation throughout all practice we do. Only when this is truly established in our being do we have a good foundation for love and compassion for others. Only when we feel the pain in our bones can we understand the sufferings of others. I believe that no one have ever managed to liberate themselves without this firm understanding of the shortcomings of samsara. But mere words doesn’t do it! Philosophical studies and clinging to conceptual ideas will never be enough, far from it. It doesn’t matter how much we believe in the non-dual nature of reality. It’s still just mental babble and clinging to concepts. True transformation is an entirely difference thing. It starts with really feeling the pain and sufferings of samsara. Milarepa understood this to such a degree that he abandoned all worldly life and went into the mountains to uproot all causes for the sufferings he experienced. He remained outside of society for the rest of his life and attained supreme enlightenment. Ohm Ah Guru Hasa Benzra Hung

Thank You.

We must accept suffering we cannot control but we must not accept evil. Enduring evil only perpetuates it.

WELL SAID !

This is wisdom

I think this is the first time I understood the connection of suffering, the material world, to the spiritual path as this evolving force, this squeezing, as opposed to something that represents failure

Very somber. Well put.

good talk

🙏

I can attest to a great increase of empathy and compassion being a sign of serious practice. I practice in an integral/eclectic way, but it's mostly Buddhist in nature (Shamatha/Vipassana), but there's also Prayer and Pranayama/breath work. Even before starting my practice (in mid 2019.) I considered myself a compassionate and empathetic man, but looking back on it now, the level or quality of my compassion was so much lower. I've also come to conclusion that it comes from understanding, when you understand "yourself", how the mind operates, how the personality is formed and how it's all empty of substance, you understand that every other human being is the same, with the same Buddha Nature as it's base. Now, even when done wrong by someone, when someone is rude, corrupt, or even evil, there's understanding of how it came to it. That doesn't mean that the behavior is excused or not corrected, I'm not a doormat, but there's understanding and compassion. Nobody wants to be angry, delusional, rude, insecure, corrupt, it's just the program they operate through.

Thanks for appearing on my feed, worth exploring However I think the fundamental problem we would need to understand isn't just the soothing of the fact that there's "no other way". Instead, its whatever we're growing into is truly, truly worth it, instead of whatever thing we're imagining we'd rather have. Can you imagine an already decent man who'd rather just have is family, somehow becoming more decent and empathetic when there's no other way? Because I can't, truly. Why employ his service to make the world a better place through this method of "necessary harm"? To try and understand this makes apathy, or like me, a pure resentful denial, whereas truly believing it would give empathy, I think. I can see him choosing to understand that this outcome is best for everyone (including all of them who were home), so empathy grows and he spends his time helping others so there's more wellbeing in the world. But I can't see him understanding that this outcome is more necessary than all their desires of wellbeing. Thats the cold view, isn't it? "Thats just karma, its gotta be this way" outlook? Also thanks if anyone bothered with these thoughts, good luck all

Could it be that we are all taking turns experiencing different levels of joy and sorrow simply to give each other the different perspective of how it feels to either go through the experience or to see someone else go through it.

To be conflicted with the world is to be attached, it is to have an expectation and live in the shadow of that expectation, to be free from the world and suffering is not for it to be fixed, rather it is to be free of the expectation that creates the suffering Those who speak of the world like it is an issue, like it is an outside thing - these people speak only of their own tainted experience

Very true words lama, we must try liberating sentient beings in the mundane world, cultivate bodhichitta and change things

I can deny the separate existence of good and evil and can confirm with my mind that there is only one, eternal consciousness from which both good and evil emanate. But what of my heavy heart, the knot in my throat, and the weeping which at times overwhelms me? The body doesn't lie. Being in this world HURTS. It is painful

Of all the Common Sense videos I've watched here, this by Far is one that really makes you contemplate what suffering you and the rest of the world should be facing head on in the moment. ( Actual ) Bodhichitta takes Work, but like these heavy traumatic experiences mentioned here can actually be a quicker path to transformation than diligent Buddhist Refuge training. Thank you for continuing to keep "it' real ! 🙏

I'm not sure I fully agree. I think what I have an objection to is mostly the idea of going out of one's way to help others (which to be fair, I'm not sure if that's what you mean by having greater empathy or if just being gentle with people is enough). Here's why: 1. The only way for people to escape suffering is to get on the path of meditation and denying the will. But, to be direct and a little gruff, people simply don't like having their ideas about reality and the world fucked with. It doesn't work. Trying to get people on this path is truly a fool's errand and I know because I've tried! Even if I'm gentle, and very logical it doesn't matter. People don't want to hear it. 2. The other alternative is to try and fulfill people's will by giving them stuff or serving them, but this doesn't really help them progress toward to ending their suffering permanently. It's just a temporary reprieve from grosser suffering into slightly more subtle suffering. And from there people just continue their suffering in their mundane world. The net benefit is rather nothing in the grand scheme of things. 3. The only benefit I've seen to helping others is in confronting my own selfishness. But even there meditation is simply more efficient. A one week retreat will clear out far more sankharas than months of volunteer work. Thank you for any response in advance. I'm just giving my experience here, and why I've found that being gentle and compassionate with people is almost a given, but going out of one's way to help doesn't seem very fruitful.

It is as we are! Love! Make it beautiful!

always love your mother, be a good house holder!

Respect the Orthodoxy. If you want someone to hold your hand through this you are in the wrong realm. Subscribed.

you are saved slready

Thankyou , i always listen more than once . Sometimes i wonder if human suffering was amplified when the globe Earth was taken as the truth , did humanity go on a less philosophical path because of it and become more materialistic . Great talk once again .

Thankyou, I couldn't agree more with your opening gambit. The mundane is not fine, never was, and never will be. And so much 'backlit screen' entertainment - is all about delving into our mundane world - to reveal just how damaging it is. And now, I'm going to listen to your video. Thankyou for it. Grace (my name)

When I went to the conference centre to grow spiritually that means peeling off the layers off a onion until the sweet bulb is found. It was like everything on earth didn't want me to go. The little interruptions were not my imagination. I learnt about comfort zones and the stagnation.

well said. It hurts to know that perfection isnt possible, that we will always lose, and lose that whose loss is an abomination, albeit entirely natural and harmonious with happening. But at the end of the day, atleast it happened, atleast we had them and as long as we remove all cope we can truly respect their life and memory.

Finally a buddhist that can articulate complex philosophies

I'm quite familiar. I've lived on the spectrum, I've read Straw Dogs by John Gray (rips the band aid off nicely), also Slate Star Codex's 'Meditations On Moloch', and Rene Girard's theories of memetic desire are quite nice in this regard as well. I think a lot of people confuse spirituality for escapism and get annoyed when they're called out on it.

Hardly anyone thinks it's 'fine'. But we think it's in our nature to create the difficulties and unnecessary suffering. We think it's our nature to not be able to work it all out so that it's better for everyone. We think we're weak and selfish. We wish we weren't but we believe we are. Most of us just try to find ways to live with that.

The more you do nothing, the more hell manifests upon this earth.

Who am I to believe that I can improve on what the creator has made?

what a classic 2x speed guy

Hello Lama Choga. I believe the suffering of being was covered well by Schopenhauer. I also have studied the samurai Musashi, who I heard converted to buddhism at the end of his life. I studied his precepts of the dokkodo and align this with buddhism. Have you explored his works?

How could the world be a way it's not supposed to be? Can you help me to understand the mechanics at play as to why I should believe that the universe is not already perfected?

• There is limitless consciousness (deepest awareness) which is the level of 'pure being' ("sattva") beyond the intellect. This is the inner most fundamental essence or essential nature of all conscious beings and all that exists or appears to exist. • Then there is mind (the conceptual mind which names experience - "nama") which is the intellect or thought, and this is the "subtle body" (subject-self) which experiences "objects" of perception (other than self). This is the state between matter or "form" and pure consciousness which gives rise to the sense of individuality or the "ego-self" ("jiva" or "I, me, mine"). • Then there is the physical or material body which is the ego-self's attached and identified form ("rupa") and experiential plane (world) that is the result of karma. And so there is "sattva" (pure being/consciousness), then "nama" (mind, subject), then "rupa" (form, object, matter) from our perspective. But from the ultimate perspective there is only "sattva" (pure being or limitless consciousness). Only sattva ("Shiva") is (exists), and all that issues forth from that still point by means of it's inherent potential or energy ("Shakti") is illusory ("Maya"). ParamShiva ("Shiva," aka "consciousness") is all there is. And this includes within it the innate (and eternal) potential "to be" - which is the energy ("Shakti") that produces or "gives birth to" experience (experience = "Maya," the illusion of an objective and distinct world/life "out there"). Now, no place in this "formula" is there mention nor room for "neglect" or "indifference" to suffering. In fact, the whole point of this is to relieve suffering. And by "relieving suffering" we mean engaging with those who experience suffering on each of those levels - both "physical" and "mental." The point of the spiritual path is to relieve suffering. To relieve suffering one must recognize it acknowledge and accept it as a fact of OUR experience. Coldness, indifference, apathy, neglect are not really part of the spiritual path. They are temporary traps or "dead ends" that are illusory states of mind. Within each moment there is purity, quietude, stillness, voidness at its center. But we dont notice it. And so we lose ourselves in the movement, the energy, the temporary form, and then we believe in that "illusion." The suffering is still suffering be it sourced from illusion or not. Yet we have to engage in that movement because life = movement... and loss and even suffering. So love in each and every moment, bring love, and in each movement.. engage. But also, notice the peace that is at its center. If you can do that you are on the spiritual path. ❤🙏

I try to use my suffering for as many things as possible it can become a spiritual Swiss army knife .

Life is suffering, earth realm is Hell

How are any of us really giving back anything?

So when you are liberated from the mundane world. Does that mean you graduated, that you can forget about all the suffering, enjoy yourself in eternal bliss, and ignore that the suffering will still continue on, in world you left behind?

I really liked what you had to say, but my problem is the anger I feel towards those who are destroying the environment, dealing with Western egos, when is it appropriate for a wrathful Buddha?

"If it were otherwise, the tarantulas would teach otherwise." The noise of the world as seen from a cave.

I’m in my 20s and can’t imagine living till my 60s. Definitely going to unalive whenever I get the balls / money runs out. Absolute waste being here for nothing. I haven’t found a single thing that warrants staying here. Non existence is true freedom

Karma is a mess and we should start with a basis in simplicity: action, choice, many actors performing actions, choice saturation, the dilution/thinning of willing options, choice from available option, leading back to not knowing, and the aversion and bitterness that cause grasping. Example: We go into a room, we get to choose from different fruits, I choose first. Now, you know that you cannot say banana. We exit the room, outside waiting for us is a stack of 99 bananas and 99 of whatever fruit you chose. We simply forgot we had entered the room 99 times. Why did i pick 99 bananas? I like bananas, and I didn't know I had 99. This lead me down the same path every time. This also means that if you like bananas, you would always be separated from it, again and again. But if you're free, you take say apple and say ,"This is banana!" And it becomes banana in your senses. I have seen teenagers do this with soda, it became alcohol, they believed themselves to be intoxicated.

😂 what an intro 👍

So what do we say when friends come to us about their suffering? Do we say anything at all?

That is the karmapa flag right? are you Kagyu?

You think we live on a planet, so how would you even know if things are fine or not?

Only natural compassion resonates with Heaven. I do not except the bad. For it never stops, not until nothing will be living on this earth. That is the nature of bad. Evil is action and only action can prevent evil from acting. Do nothing, and regret and guilt will destroy you. That is our true nature. Even evil regrets in the end.

People are using false interpretation of believes to empower their own qualities. It's shown that someone is apathy person when stuffs happen and the person don't try to help. It's easier to magnify existing realities than improving them into a better one.

What planet _am_ I on... I really want to know, is this really _Earth?_

KZfaq recommended me nothing but cults, praise Yeshua! At least my head will be cool in the summer time.

Just wanted to say hello from me and the Bois. Can't wait for another amazing talk. 🐕‍🦺🙏📿🐕‍🦺

Karma is for the poor and those oblivious of the true reality.

Its only your attitude that needs to change

What is tiring is listening to a KZfaq guru like you///the mortal dream...silence...

Semi Hell realm and possible soul trap

Aho

Maybe try looking at the bright side of things (?)

and what planet do you live on to think that the idea of free will and postmortem justice is what holds society in order? The opposite is true. Nature is harmony. Ego-delusion of free will is disruption.

I dont believe in life outside of mundane reality, I think the only way we get those we love is by being here. Therefore, there cannot be any true liberation from suffering. But I am ok with that, because a false expectation of reality might as well be a renunciation of the lives we love themselves. One cannot despise death, because it gave us those we love. I suppose you would talk about oneness, therefore there cannot be any loss (in suffering context), But people arent me, that will always be the most true.

Earth is not a planet it's a plane

maybe people get annoyed in response to the condescension and superiority complex in your worldview. attachment to any view (including your own) is a limitation. wishing you well. 🙏

Too late for logic.. this planet is doomed.. thanks grasshopper.

Hey look its Raze🤣

I have a genuine question for you as a buddhist monk ... we all know you do not admit that there is a creator who created the creation and there is no original cause ..... which is logically and mentally lacks any basis and is more of an insane claim ..... we all know that everything has a creator ..... everything with no exception ... so how come you you do not admit that for this universe there is no original cause ???? it it like entering a building and you asked me who made this building and i will reply by oh no one it built itself you will immediately know that this is nonsense ....

I think you need to go one level higher bro

Somehow i am banned from this channel? Wow Well, at least I can see this comment, perhaps no one else can What planet am I on? This one kzfaq.info/get/bejne/etGjitCI0s67pps.htmlsi=prpZNfC0S2_0w3yM We're always here, and it's always now This is it It is what it is

DOOM DOOM DOOM lol

There are no hardships in life. There are only thoughts of hardships. There is nothing wrong with this world, because it doesn't exist. Please, relax. Stop trying so hard and see.

As a philosophical stance, the viewpoint that the world is "just fine" the way it is makes sense, as a form of saying it is only not okay because we perceive it as such. That's very different from actually embodying that level of equanimity and acceptance, as you put it. And I don't believe it's such a high level of practice that few achieve it -- I'm convinced that it is absolutely impossible and contrary to human (or animal) nature to achieve, and everybody who says otherwise is lying.

Fuck the will of God.

The world is..., all is karma unfolding, all is law. Our goal is to be compassionate and loving yet having the wisdom. You are not an enlightened being. Why teach? Stop teaching and focus on your own journey. Your help to society will be done in the spiritual realm instead of KZfaq. True enlightened monks don't go on KZfaq. They help the world in silence

You speak truth but you look like you are in a deep pain and sound almost robotic. If this is what growth looks like then i think ill stay away from buddhas teachings and stick to Christ. God bless

Fake Fake Fake!

I don't like it here, it's disgusting