You are not a slave to "human nature." In fact there is no such thing as human nature. What we call human nature is really nothing other than habit energy. I think it would be more accurate if we called it that because human nature carries a sense of something that can't be changed or is inescapable. So there's a lot of human action that gets excused by that term. "Oh we can't avoid war, hatred, exploitation, superiority complexes etc. Because it's human nature. " No it's habit energy carried on through generations in the mental, emotional, social, and environmental conditioning which shapes the individual, their beliefs, and views through culture. While at the same time the culture is shaped by individual points of view. When we call it habit energy we see that those acts that are destructive to the self/ other are indeed a choice although unconscious to many. There's always the option for redemption you are not a slave to it.

All I have to say on recent events is this: It's easy to manipulate people into seeing the other as an enemy when governments have control of the information presented to citizens. They have to divide to conquer and dehumanize the other side. People have to be motivated to hatred or belief in superiority through mental, emotional, social, and environmental conditioning. Rarely do the people ever become aware of the atrocities committed in their name by governments. The human family must learn to play cooperative games to survive the insane amount of technological capacity and total lack of wisdom to employ it that we currently have. I think over time bitcoin fixes this because it is a system with 0 monetary entropy. So over time since there is no loss of wealth but only increase as productive capacity increases all people benefit from the advancement equally as their purchasing power increases. Over a long period of time this can change human value systems and unhelpful habit energies as bitcoin transitions individuals into its cooperative game where people aren't incentivized to lie, cheat, and steal to keep up with their loss in purchasing power. This in turn creates abundance over time as we transition from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset which obviates the root cause of the need for one group to claim supremacy of themselves and inferiority of the other to justify why they deserve access to our control over resources and the other doesn't. I'm thinking of course on a 500 year timeliness perhaps longer or shorter depending on how quickly people collectively understand the game that is being presented. How to move from self destructive to cooperative games that can advance us to type 1 on the kardashev scale and beyond. I have faith in humanity to eventually leave these barbaric ways behind and play a more cosmic survival game.

To be free from attachment to desires is the greatest freedom. That doesn't mean don't desire, it just means to let go/ let life lead when things don't go as intended.

Every human being Every company Every country Is faced with the prisoner's dilemma that Bitcoin presents to all. The incentive to adopt is extremely powerful the penalty for not adopting when others do can put you, your company, and your country at great risk of loss. Bitcoin is the highest stakes game in the world!

This video still needs to be seen by 7.9 billion people.

Saw this today. Just had to comment on it. This is just a whole lot of projection about what the "other" is like. It justifies the egoic position of superiority. That you are right and they are wrong. Which traditionally had been used by tyrants to appeal to emotion as a power grab.

Money as a system of control. Needs more views.

Epic. Awareness is Everything by Jackson Peterson Awareness/Being is Everything. Whatever you experience, you are always aware of that experience. Awareness is always part of every experience. There are not two things: Awareness and the experience. The experience is the energy of Awareness manifesting as that energy event. The experience is the Awareness of it. We are nothing but the unfolding events of experience as Awareness. We are everything in that everything is Awareness being everything. Being a separate self is Awareness being that experience of separate self-hood. There is no separate Awareness that is viewing the experience as the experience is itself Awareness. You cannot separate the waves from the ocean. Experiences are waves of Awareness and one cannot separate the Awareness from the event as the event is itself Awareness eventing. In whatever we say, do or think, all of these experiences are just Awareness manifesting AS those thoughts, words or actions without any separation between the Awareness of and the experience. Even the self of ego consciousness is Awareness appearing AS that egoic self. There is no personal Awareness as my Awareness or your Awareness. Who is there to be liberated? There is the experience of the thought “my Awareness” and “your Awareness”, but these are also experiences of a non-personal and universal Awareness appearing as those thoughts of “my” and “yours”. In this way the entire ocean is present AS the smallest wave. Just noticing and being Aware as a practice, is Awareness arising as that. In such a practice Awareness has nothing to gain. In not practicing being Aware, Awareness has nothing to lose. All experiences are equally Awareness appearing AS those experiences. Awareness is not more present in some experiences and less in others. No matter the size of the wave, all waves are still equally ocean. That Awareness is appearing AS thinking and AS the absence of thinking. Be clear here, thinking is Awareness appearing AS thinking. When Awareness is appearing AS a moment of knowing itself AS Awareness, thinking (ignorance and delusion) are absent because both are mutually exclusive appearances of Awareness.

Conversation with a fellow dharma practitioner that i find valuable: A: What has been called “presence” is the increased clarity of undivided awareness itself that comes when attention is anchored onto any object of knowledge that arises in the field of awareness. Two things are being fulfilled in this anchoring - one is awareness of the object itself, a thought, a feeling, an image and so on. The other is the space in which the object projects itself - which is pervasive, pure consciousness. Therefore every single moment of self-observation is an effort to rest in presence. With memory and will, the entire art of refining one’s meditation is reinforcing this shift from inattention to attention, over and over again, until “seeing” starts to unfold spontaneously, not unlike a lotus unfolding when it has been exposed to all of the necessary ingredients for life to flourish. Then one day you will no longer make an effort for seeing, but recognize yourself as seeing yourself. B: Well the effort is also an object or expression of that which needs no effort to know. I hear a bird chirp there's no effort in the hearing. A: You hear a bird chip and there is no effort in the hearing, yet effort is required for listening. Hearing is merely a mechanical process which leads to this particular mental projection we speak of as “hearing”, still whatever does not enter one’s perception is only a mechanical reaction. Likewise all sorts of mental projections are taking place, and one does not acknowledge, truly respond, to notice even half of them, unless perhaps one becomes a bit more skilled in the art of mindfulness. As far as spiritual process, inner purification, and all matters related to wisdom - it is not enough for there to be merely the existence of awareness. Otherwise one could spend one’s entire life in a dream, without ever becoming conscious that one is in a dream - a sort of waking hypnosis in which one is under the spell of wrong knowledge, attachments, ego identifications, stories, narratives, the expressions of one’s shadow, etc. Awareness is an impersonal intelligence which sees but cannot see itself. For self knowledge to take place - there must be perception. So much misunderstand has taken placed about these subjects because the proper investigation has not been done into the difference between perception and consciousness. Many things may exist in the field of one’s consciousness which one does not perceive, and therefore tends not to leave either a stronger impression on one’s memory, nor a sensitivity to the present which illuminates these mental projections as something immediately relevant to one’s experience. Once one can begin to exercise self observation and attention, only then can one begin to approach one’s own mental projections with wisdom and understanding, and this in itself leads to training of the wisdom faculty. Too often, because of a fixation on these one sided narratives of being “already enlightened”, the result is a very passive state of mind which amounts to laziness and an excuse to become irresponsible. This aside, it’s a one sided approach to what spiritual process is. Spiritual process isn’t mere involution; returning to the so called “source” or seeing one’s true nature. It is also a process of evolution - there are reactions and side effects to seeing oneself clearly. It is both involution and evolution together. B: Well said, practice is a continuous process, ever revealing. While it is possible for instant recognition like dzogchen and ch'an show we must do the work still to practice up to and beyond the recognition of anatta. A: Correct, for example even if let’s say it is more than a glimpse into one’s nature - let’s say the physical structure of the body has radically altered itself so that expansive samadhi becomes a default, baseline state. Even then, wisdom may overshadow compassion; emotional traumas may remain unprocessed and therefore repressed in the shadow, heart and mind may be unbalanced, one may be too immersed in expansive samadhi and not grounded enough in the body, attachment to unquestioned beliefs, confirmation biases, etc It does not take much to form a blind spot - only a single moment of inattention. So from the point of view of integration, anybody who truly beleives their inner work is “complete” is a fool, doesn’t matter what their degree of inner awareness is. contentment. I think one of the most toxic illusions for the spiritual process is the belief, in one way or another, that there is a final destination. Of course it’s consoling for the ego to cling to some idea of a final destination; as though justifying all of one’s pains, struggles, and sufferings. This is distinct from having a self made purpose, a creative vision towards which one’s efforts are directed. That’s more being a creative force in the world - creating and destroying purpose as needed. Very different from a belief in the “final destination” B: totally agree!

Yo dawg,I heard you like inflation.

Reading the Bon flowering light tantra, this gem stuck out. "The Heart is the place of the mind, it is the Great Waterhouse, the great watershed of the human consciousness.All life moves through it and comes back to it; all thoughts arise from out of it and return back to it. What is this Heart? The heart is the nature of ourselves, made from time yet beyond time, creating space yet not of space. Creating patterns and forms that give rise to the material world. Through our attachment we create the heart also.  All the world is real, our reactions to it are not, our responses to it are not." 

Any guesses on how long until nostr takes over streaming? Imagine micropayments for the stuff you actually want to watch instead of a bunch of 10 dollar subscriptions to platforms.

Longchenpa makes an astonishing commentary on a portion from the Dzogchen Semde root tantra, the Kunje Gyalpo. I have included both Longchenpa's commentary and the relevant text from the Kunje Gyalpo. Quotes are from Longchenpa's The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena, published by Padma Publishing. My comments are beneath the KJG quotes below. "Spontaneously present meditative stability, settled in its own place, is understood to be ongoing, like the flow of a river, without having to be deliberately cultivated. Within that context, everything arises as the true nature of phenomena, and so there is no error or obscuration, no dullness or agitation, no distraction or even the lack of it, **because any object of distraction arises as the display of that nature."** From the Kunje Gyalpo: To ignore what is inherent and seek afar for something else, eagerly trying to arouse the bliss that requires no effort... there is no greater debility than this. Undistracted meditative absorption is a stake that tethers one to reification. With respect to what is and always has been , there is no distraction, nothing to be lost. Undistracted meditative absorption seduces one with hope. Such are the Mahayana approaches based on either causes or results, which reveal what is provisional.... With respect to what is and always has been, there is no distraction, no loss. The state in which nothing need be done transcends all effort and achievement." Jackson: Notice above where Longchenpa says "any object of distraction arises as the display of that nature." In other words, whatever you are distracted by is itself the display of Rigpa and so you are actually still noticing Rigpa's display. As an example, when you are simply present to the here and now observing the sky, while observing the sky, a strong distracting thought or image enters your mind. Suddenly you are no longer in the here and now noticing the sky, but rather you are observing this thought. This is in traditional Mahayana vehicles of meditation considered to be distraction and is taught to be avoided and corrected. One is taught to stay in here and now awareness. But Longchenpa is saying those distracting thoughts are themselves just as valid as the sky as 'objects of experience'. Those thoughts are also occurring in the here and now, so when you are observing thoughts or images you are also fully in here and now presence. Both the sky and thoughts are equally Rigpa's pure display. So in this way it is understood that distraction is impossible. If this extremely subtle and vital point is understood, all effort at trying to maintain an undistracted state drops away. All experiences of every kind are equally the display of Rigpa. Then one may ask: Well, ok ... then what exactly do I do when practicing Dzogchen? Great question! But it must remain unanswered, or else the answer will be turned into a new something to do. In Dzogchen the notion that there is something to do or practice is considered an illness. You are already Rigpa Awareness, what would be the point of doing something in order to become what you already are? great perfection is very simple. Explained here.

It's most intelligent to design deflationary systems which do not rely on infinite growth and consumption through debt expansion. That said, as technological capacity and energetic capacity increases humans can do more and more with less and less, as buckminster fuller often talked about.

A lot of the motivation behind human social interactio is motivated by a desire to be loved, seen, accepted into the group. This has been weaponized by social media to get individuals to identify with groupthink and to self censor the individual's true being in hope of being accepted, seen, and loved. I feel this is Major contributor to the epidemic of mental illness we see in the world around us. Perhaps it has always been this way, but becoming aware of what motivates our actions gives us power to make a choice to be truly authentic with ourselves and others.

From a friend. On kunje gyalpo and the nature of mind and phenomena Longchenpa makes an astonishing commentary on a portion from the Dzogchen Semde root tantra, the Kunje Gyalpo. I have included both Longchenpa's commentary and the relevant text from the Kunje Gyalpo. Quotes are from Longchenpa's The Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena, published by Padma Publishing. My comments are beneath the KJG quotes below. "Spontaneously present meditative stability, settled in its own place, is understood to be ongoing, like the flow of a river, without having to be deliberately cultivated. Within that context, everything arises as the true nature of phenomena, and so there is no error or obscuration, no dullness or agitation, no distraction or even the lack of it, **because any object of distraction arises as the display of that nature."** From the Kunje Gyalpo: To ignore what is inherent and seek afar for something else, eagerly trying to arouse the bliss that requires no effort... there is no greater debility than this. Undistracted meditative absorption is a stake that tethers one to reification. With respect to what is and always has been , there is no distraction, nothing to be lost. Undistracted meditative absorption seduces one with hope. Such are the Mahayana approaches based on either causes or results, which reveal what is provisional.... With respect to what is and always has been, there is no distraction, no loss. The state in which nothing need be done transcends all effort and achievement." Jackson: Notice above where Longchenpa says "any object of distraction arises as the display of that nature." In other words, whatever you are distracted by is itself the display of Rigpa and so you are actually still noticing Rigpa's display. As an example, when you are simply present to the here and now observing the sky, while observing the sky, a strong distracting thought or image enters your mind. Suddenly you are no longer in the here and now noticing the sky, but rather you are observing this thought. This is in traditional Mahayana vehicles of meditation considered to be distraction and is taught to be avoided and corrected. One is taught to stay in here and now awareness. But Longchenpa is saying those distracting thoughts are themselves just as valid as the sky as 'objects of experience'. Those thoughts are also occurring in the here and now, so when you are observing thoughts or images you are also fully in here and now presence. Both the sky and thoughts are equally Rigpa's pure display. So in this way it is understood that distraction is impossible. If this extremely subtle and vital point is understood, all effort at trying to maintain an undistracted state drops away. All experiences of every kind are equally the display of Rigpa. Then one may ask: Well, ok ... then what exactly do I do when practicing Dzogchen? Great question! But it must remain unanswered, or else the answer will be turned into a new something to do. In Dzogchen the notion that there is something to do or practice is considered an illness. You are already Rigpa Awareness, what would be the point of doing something in order to become what you already are?