@freeflymike I agree. The moment when dharma students realize that dharma is about realization and not explanation, is a huge moment in their lives, but everyone needs some explanation too. Thanks for posting this excellent explanation.
I enjoyed the lecture. I think that Lama Ole Nydahl does a very good job explaining karma, but to really understand one's own karma and by extension, to better understand the karma of others, one must meditate. To simply go from shamata to vipassana is a great achievement in any life.
You are correct about that - the ego is the basis for compulsive rebirth. On the other hand there are those that are reborn for different reasons. Such as to fullfil promises made or out of a great desire to benefit others.
I'm so sorry you had a bad childhood. I did too and wanted to offer you something that has helped me and I hope it helps you just as much. I realised that I am not a slave to my nasty parents anymore, I don't have to try and impress them or get them to like me. I can let that go and start feeling good without them. I have the power to do that now. I no longer seek their approval. Blessings to you and a big hug to you from me. x
@ironpirites amen to that! regarding the understanding of karma I've always thought that its not necessary to completely understand it. I think a useful view is to have some confidence that karma functions, then try and do our best in the situations life presents.
Lama Ole is a political incorrect buddhist. He don´t kiss butt and refuse to be the buddhist the establishment want him to be. Lama Ole dont hate Islam, he just have the guts to say open what a lot of people think, but with pure wisdom.
Karma is a teaching to maintain our innate happiness and well-being by not doing destructive harmful actions. Freeing the mind from egoism is a more subtle practice to free the mind from suffering that may arise to life's inevitabilities such as sickness, ageing and death. Buddha taught only the cessation of suffering. This is the essential matter.
Talking about the way Buddhism is taught can be very complicated because there are different approaches and emphases in different traditions. When people begin to meditate in my tradition they first practice shamata to calm the mind. When the mind is calm, insight (vipassana) arises. Only in that sense could you say they are one. The two are early steps to more profound practices. Wikipedia has good articles on shamata and vipassana. I'm certainly not an expert on what other people know though.
@ironpirites I jumped into this because I saw some interesting questions. I haven't seen the video, above. Science studies materials and their cause and effect relationships exhaustively. Buddhism is aware of cause and effect and enumerates some of those causes and effect but not exhaustively. Buddhism's concern is to relieve suffering through the study of the productions of the mind. When they are understood as essentially void in nature mental (and sometimes physical) suffering evaporates.
You don't understand; Samata and Vipassana are one; it does not matter! You need to reach the jhanas, otherwise what's the point? Many Vipassana teachers, for all their merits, don't get that! .... If you don't reach the jahnas, it will only allow the ego to keep turning in gyres ... Lama Nydahl is a superb practitioner of the Diamond Way ...
if i walk around and intentionally think negative thoughts for a whole year, it will effect my life for the rest of my life. now apply this to rebirth. if you were negative your whole life you'll be negative in your next. unless you become awake to this fact.. in which case you then can change it..
@ballaststoffel2 I think it can be as you say, that a patient has the same vocabulary and can write fluently but cannot speak - or all language can be wiped out - it all depends where the brain is damaged and how much is lost. Damage to the prefrontal cortex for example can result in a loss of inhibition, causing people to do terribly inappropriate things that they don't even know are wrong anymore - these can be permanent changes in personality.
@ironpirites @ironpirites Lama Ole Nydahl undoubtedly has good reasons for referencing science in discussions with his students. Science has great prestige in our world. But students of the history of science can tell anyone that science does not always deserve the prestige it is accorded and does not always properly use the tools of logic and observation. The scientific attitude is a rare thing, even among scientists.
the first step to make the impresson better is to thank the animal that it died for you that allready helps. the second thing you can do is to eat less beef (what I acctually do) or becoming vegetarian. if that comes with the wish to make the suffering fewer on this world, the effect will be joyfull for you, cause and effect works allways wether it brings harm or happyness. i hope that helped you and please appologize my faults (english isnt my first language)
@ballaststoffel2 If an immortal soul exists, and is natural as you suggest, then in some way it must manifest in the natural world and therefore in principle we should be able to detect it. Perhaps if we had sensitive enough instruments we could find it? If not then we have no good reason to believe it does exist. Feeling strongly that we have a soul isn't good enough - emotions and intuition are too often wrong.
@ballaststoffel2 Language is more than just a tool; the words and sentences we have at our disposal define a great deal about our minds. Certainly my stream of consciousness involves a lot of language. Some brain damage strikes right to the core: there's a case of a man who was in a car accident and lost all his empathy. He no longer felt any love for his wife or child - a heartbreaking case, but what could be more central to our identity than our love for friends and family?
@agnostoatomo Not sure why anyone would delete anything you write. I don't mind a dialogue as long as I have time, but if you direct anything to me be sure to indicate that., so I can be sure I should respond.
@ballaststoffel2 I've been following your conversation with Luc88Cole and I might be able to clear up a misunderstanding. What we can tell about consciousness is that any time a brain is damaged, the mind is affected in a corresponding way. If the speech centre is totally destroyed that person no longer has any idea on how to speak, even though it was a big part of their personality before the damage. There are many similar examples that show that the mind is dependent on the brain.
@Luc88Cole ... actually have terribly poor resolution when we consider the complexity of what they're looking at. We can see that there's more activity in certain parts of the brain under various conditions but the reason I don't think our understanding is solid is that our predictive power for what a given consciousness will do is very poor. Sam Harris reckons it's not even possible to empirically verify that a being IS conscious from looking at brains; we have to assume it, if with good reason
@Luc88Cole I googled Husserl but he died 150 years before neuroscience even started. You say you've provided an explanation of experience but I didn't get that - as I said, how is it even possible to empirically demonstrate that a person or animal actually IS conscious? The comprehensive understanding of consciousness that you said we already have would need to explain how these huge networks of individual cells give rise to an experience - otherwise it can't be called comprehensive.
No,this was not adressed 2 u,except if u would have been able 2 delete my comment & done so. The reason why i referred 2 the comparison between scientific cause&effect & Karma according 2 some Dharmatraditions is,because Ole Nydahl did so & said it is not a belief but fact.I agree with u that Buddhism has an antidukkha agenda & uses explanations according 2 the mental capacities of the listener.The Buddha made very clear that whatever he said is a pointing out 2 and not THE final truth itself.
Cause and effect is not a guided process. Actions lead to their consequences and were caused by combinations of prior events in a vast network extending through time and space, but the idea that immoral acts bring suffering back on the soul which caused them necessitates a guiding moral arbiter. How could the impersonal nature of causality balance the human world in order to ensure that our successive lives are progressive, rather than random, without such a guiding force?
@angelyouknew2 Practising fundamental "tranquillity" meditation will help you calm your mind. After practising that successfully the mind switches gears into "insight" meditation, in which realizations about your situation will begin to spontaneously arise. That process will lead to a clear appreciation of the causes of your suffering and especially of their interdependant origination and essentially void nature. You will be able to navigate in life much more fruitfully after that.
@Luc88Cole I mean we're talking about an organ with around 100 billion neurons, each with thousands or tens of thousands of connections, and everyone I've read says we're just beginning to scratch its surface; 'neuroscience is in its infancy'. Science is all about empirical data and predictive power, so as strange as quantum theory is, we can trust it because its predictions are incredibly accurate. The tools we currently use to investigate the brain, as sophisticated as they are ...
@Luc88Cole I agree with a lot of what you said in this convo, but I don't think we do have a 'very solid understanding of what consciousness is'. Of course we have good reasons for thinking it's nothing more than a material process, and lots of theories and data probing it's depths but isn't consciousness still widely regarded among scientists as one of the greatest mysteries of the world? Not that this gives anyone the right to fill the mysterious gaps with whatever nonsense they please!
@agnostoatomo The scientific approach to psychology illustrates the difference between what the Buddha thought important and what science considers important. In science one sees elaborate enumerations of symptoms. Causes are researched in chemistry and psychology. Mental balance is sometimes restored. But Buddhism applies meditation as a universal solvent to any mental suffering. Both use observation and logic as tools but science, except for quantum mechanics, bolsters the "material" world.
there's definately a consciousness. You are using it right now. It's just that things are not exactly as they appear. If I understand it correctly the reality we each experience is largely self created. On the absolute or essential level of mind though it would be quite correct to say that even rebirth is an illusion. You should find a qualified Lama and as this question face to face. I'm sure you would get an answer that would satisfy you. try kagyu net
He looks a lot better than Sting despite being older. That comes from the benefit of his Buddhist practice. Not to say, tho, that Sting hasn't cultivated good karma for his being.
how to stop fanatize? i became a fanatic, and want to be normal again.... spaced out fanatic.... every body in Diamond way center says that everything is in Lamas Oles field and believe that Ole like God save everyone, solve all our problems..... what is happening with us?why we are so spaced out?abd can not live our lives, only this fanatizm....
@Luc88Cole Really mate there's no need to talk to people like that unless they're being nasty. I thought the question he asked you was quite lucid. If you look at his/her page you'll see he's from Germany, and I bet his English is a lot better than your German. I think it's quite valid to ask what is it that constitutes 'me'. Am I my thoughts, am I the sense of self that is aware of my thoughts, or is it both or neither or... who knows for sure?
@agnostoatomo Buddhism doesn't study karma the way science studies cause and effect. Science studies materials and their interactions. Buddhism studies mental productions and their consequences. Buddhism is a way of thinking designed to remove suffering. If you have a bad dream and see it and yourself as reality you can suffer greatly. If you have a bad life and regard it and yourself as an illusion you can remove the mental disturbances caused by your situation.
well, you know what you are doing, I think you also wish to do it, you do it and if there is a happieness afterwards it will make a deep impression in your mind and you will suffer. you didnt kill the animal but you made somebody to kill some animals again so it isnt really a usefull act to eat beef. but we also have to know that being a human meens till we are enlightment also doing some unusefull things.
The minority comment he uses about buddha not true at least one sutra says its too far reaching to make that kind of statements/claims you could tell "This is for this presumably reason you now suffer etc"....
@agnostoatomo The person who doesn't realize what the Buddha was teaching, the person who believes in his ego, who is not aware of interdependant origination and who does not realize the void nature of ego. If you believe you are Hamlet, you will be a great Hamlet. If you don't really think you are Hamlet, you will be lousy at it. The Buddha was lousy at egotism. I'm much better at it thatn he was. You may be even better than I. I hope not.
People are born into families and situations that allow them to work out their specific karmas, that allow them to learn what their souls want them to learn in that lifetime. This man paints with a very broad brush. Behind all the training, he has very simplistic and silly thought processes, the kind that very typically mark those who might be considered *racist*.
Great teacher, very articulate and direct. An honour to listen to this great mans words.
i used to go see him every Thanksgiving. I miss him.
this is really an amazing teacher ..
Thank you that you were born and you are with us even now. Thank you for all teachings directly, by film and by books.
With great respect.
1.know the situation
2.motivation /wishing to do something
3.do it/having it done
4.satisfied
Full power package of karma
🙏 Thank you, dear Lama! 🙏❤❤❤
he is the best
Well done. May you continue on your path with love and wisdom.
Great Teacher and Guru. Thank you Lama Ole you safe my life
Be good to others Ralf Runski
do not be small! you are not a mouse!
thank you, Lama
@freeflymike I agree.
The moment when dharma students realize that dharma is about realization and not explanation, is a huge moment in their lives, but everyone needs some explanation too. Thanks for posting this excellent explanation.
Thank you Lama la.
Great Lama....
Tashi Delek!Om Mani Peme Hung!
I enjoyed the lecture. I think that Lama Ole Nydahl does a very good job explaining karma, but to really understand one's own karma and by extension, to better understand the karma of others, one must meditate. To simply go from shamata to vipassana is a great achievement in any life.
You are correct about that - the ego is the basis for compulsive rebirth. On the other hand there are those that are reborn for different reasons. Such as to fullfil promises made or out of a great desire to benefit others.
I'm so sorry you had a bad childhood. I did too and wanted to offer you something that has helped me and I hope it helps you just as much. I realised that I am not a slave to my nasty parents anymore, I don't have to try and impress them or get them to like me. I can let that go and start feeling good without them. I have the power to do that now. I no longer seek their approval. Blessings to you and a big hug to you from me. x
@ironpirites
amen to that!
regarding the understanding of karma I've always thought that its not necessary to completely understand it. I think a useful view is to have some confidence that karma functions, then try and do our best in the situations life presents.
om mani peme hung ❤
Lama rules !!!!
Lama Ole is a political incorrect buddhist. He don´t kiss butt and refuse to be the buddhist the establishment want him to be. Lama Ole dont hate Islam, he just have the guts to say open what a lot of people think, but with pure wisdom.
@freeflymike is it possible for me to add subtitles in Bulgarian for this video?
Thank you
The period of seven weeks after death .. what external and internal changes are observed from the body in that time?
Karma is a teaching to maintain our innate happiness and well-being by not doing destructive harmful actions. Freeing the mind from egoism is a more subtle practice to free the mind from suffering that may arise to life's inevitabilities such as sickness, ageing and death. Buddha taught only the cessation of suffering. This is the essential matter.
thanks
Talking about the way Buddhism is taught can be very complicated because there are different approaches and emphases in different traditions. When people begin to meditate in my tradition they first practice shamata to calm the mind. When the mind is calm, insight (vipassana) arises. Only in that sense could you say they are one. The two are early steps to more profound practices. Wikipedia has good articles on shamata and vipassana.
I'm certainly not an expert on what other people know though.
❤
@ironpirites I jumped into this because I saw some interesting questions. I haven't seen the video, above. Science studies materials and their cause and effect relationships exhaustively. Buddhism is aware of cause and effect and enumerates some of those causes and effect but not exhaustively. Buddhism's concern is to relieve suffering through the study of the productions of the mind. When they are understood as essentially void in nature mental (and sometimes physical) suffering evaporates.
You don't understand; Samata and Vipassana are one; it does not matter! You need to reach the jhanas, otherwise what's the point? Many Vipassana teachers, for all their merits, don't get that! .... If you don't reach the jahnas, it will only allow the ego to keep turning in gyres ...
Lama Nydahl is a superb practitioner of the Diamond Way ...
if i walk around and intentionally think negative thoughts for a whole year, it will effect my life for the rest of my life. now apply this to rebirth. if you were negative your whole life you'll be negative in your next. unless you become awake to this fact.. in which case you then can change it..
...and what ist the 4 group?
@ballaststoffel2 I think it can be as you say, that a patient has the same vocabulary and can write fluently but cannot speak - or all language can be wiped out - it all depends where the brain is damaged and how much is lost. Damage to the prefrontal cortex for example can result in a loss of inhibition, causing people to do terribly inappropriate things that they don't even know are wrong anymore - these can be permanent changes in personality.
@ironpirites @ironpirites Lama Ole Nydahl undoubtedly has good reasons for referencing science in discussions with his students. Science has great prestige in our world. But students of the history of science can tell anyone that science does not always deserve the prestige it is accorded and does not always properly use the tools of logic and observation. The scientific attitude is a rare thing, even among scientists.
the first step to make the impresson better is to thank the animal that it died for you that allready helps.
the second thing you can do is to eat less beef (what I acctually do) or becoming vegetarian. if that comes with the wish to make the suffering fewer on this world, the effect will be joyfull for you, cause and effect works allways wether it brings harm or happyness.
i hope that helped you and please appologize my faults (english isnt my first language)
@ballaststoffel2 If an immortal soul exists, and is natural as you suggest, then in some way it must manifest in the natural world and therefore in principle we should be able to detect it. Perhaps if we had sensitive enough instruments we could find it? If not then we have no good reason to believe it does exist. Feeling strongly that we have a soul isn't good enough - emotions and intuition are too often wrong.
@ballaststoffel2 Language is more than just a tool; the words and sentences we have at our disposal define a great deal about our minds. Certainly my stream of consciousness involves a lot of language.
Some brain damage strikes right to the core: there's a case of a man who was in a car accident and lost all his empathy. He no longer felt any love for his wife or child - a heartbreaking case, but what could be more central to our identity than our love for friends and family?
Ole please do something for me. Please
@agnostoatomo Not sure why anyone would delete anything you write. I don't mind a dialogue as long as I have time, but if you direct anything to me be sure to indicate that., so I can be sure I should respond.
@ballaststoffel2 I've been following your conversation with Luc88Cole and I might be able to clear up a misunderstanding. What we can tell about consciousness is that any time a brain is damaged, the mind is affected in a corresponding way. If the speech centre is totally destroyed that person no longer has any idea on how to speak, even though it was a big part of their personality before the damage. There are many similar examples that show that the mind is dependent on the brain.
@Luc88Cole ... actually have terribly poor resolution when we consider the complexity of what they're looking at. We can see that there's more activity in certain parts of the brain under various conditions but the reason I don't think our understanding is solid is that our predictive power for what a given consciousness will do is very poor. Sam Harris reckons it's not even possible to empirically verify that a being IS conscious from looking at brains; we have to assume it, if with good reason
@Luc88Cole I googled Husserl but he died 150 years before neuroscience even started. You say you've provided an explanation of experience but I didn't get that - as I said, how is it even possible to empirically demonstrate that a person or animal actually IS conscious? The comprehensive understanding of consciousness that you said we already have would need to explain how these huge networks of individual cells give rise to an experience - otherwise it can't be called comprehensive.
No,this was not adressed 2 u,except if u would have been able 2 delete my comment & done so.
The reason why i referred 2 the comparison between scientific cause&effect & Karma according 2 some Dharmatraditions is,because Ole Nydahl did so & said it is not a belief but fact.I agree with u that Buddhism has an antidukkha agenda & uses explanations according 2 the mental capacities of the listener.The Buddha made very clear that whatever he said is a pointing out 2 and not THE final truth itself.
Cause and effect is not a guided process. Actions lead to their consequences and were caused by combinations of prior events in a vast network extending through time and space, but the idea that immoral acts bring suffering back on the soul which caused them necessitates a guiding moral arbiter. How could the impersonal nature of causality balance the human world in order to ensure that our successive lives are progressive, rather than random, without such a guiding force?
Why was my questions deleted? Afraid of an open Dialogue? I didn't offend anyone? So what happened in your mind?
@angelyouknew2 Practising fundamental "tranquillity" meditation will help you calm your mind. After practising that successfully the mind switches gears into "insight" meditation, in which realizations about your situation will begin to spontaneously arise. That process will lead to a clear appreciation of the causes of your suffering and especially of their interdependant origination and essentially void nature. You will be able to navigate in life much more fruitfully after that.
@Luc88Cole I mean we're talking about an organ with around 100 billion neurons, each with thousands or tens of thousands of connections, and everyone I've read says we're just beginning to scratch its surface; 'neuroscience is in its infancy'. Science is all about empirical data and predictive power, so as strange as quantum theory is, we can trust it because its predictions are incredibly accurate. The tools we currently use to investigate the brain, as sophisticated as they are ...
Emaho
@Luc88Cole I agree with a lot of what you said in this convo, but I don't think we do have a 'very solid understanding of what consciousness is'. Of course we have good reasons for thinking it's nothing more than a material process, and lots of theories and data probing it's depths but isn't consciousness still widely regarded among scientists as one of the greatest mysteries of the world? Not that this gives anyone the right to fill the mysterious gaps with whatever nonsense they please!
@agnostoatomo The scientific approach to psychology illustrates the difference between what the Buddha thought important and what science considers important. In science one sees elaborate enumerations of symptoms. Causes are researched in chemistry and psychology. Mental balance is sometimes restored. But Buddhism applies meditation as a universal solvent to any mental suffering. Both use observation and logic as tools but science, except for quantum mechanics, bolsters the "material" world.
there's definately a consciousness. You are using it right now. It's just that things are not exactly as they appear. If I understand it correctly the reality we each experience is largely self created.
On the absolute or essential level of mind though it would be quite correct to say that even rebirth is an illusion.
You should find a qualified Lama and as this question face to face. I'm sure you would get an answer that would satisfy you.
try kagyu net
He looks a lot better than Sting despite being older. That comes from the benefit of his Buddhist practice.
Not to say, tho, that Sting hasn't cultivated good karma for his being.
how to stop fanatize? i became a fanatic, and want to be normal again.... spaced out fanatic.... every body in Diamond way center says that everything is in Lamas Oles field and believe that Ole like God save everyone, solve all our problems..... what is happening with us?why we are so spaced out?abd can not live our lives, only this fanatizm....
2:17 I dunno... thats a pretty big statement... you never met the man, how can you make those claims?
Since the Buddha taught Anatman,NO Ego,who is reborn and encounters Karma?
1. Know it
2. Do something about it
3.Not want to do it again
4.Do the opposite
@Luc88Cole Really mate there's no need to talk to people like that unless they're being nasty. I thought the question he asked you was quite lucid. If you look at his/her page you'll see he's from Germany, and I bet his English is a lot better than your German.
I think it's quite valid to ask what is it that constitutes 'me'. Am I my thoughts, am I the sense of self that is aware of my thoughts, or is it both or neither or... who knows for sure?
@agnostoatomo Buddhism doesn't study karma the way science studies cause and effect. Science studies materials and their interactions. Buddhism studies mental productions and their consequences. Buddhism is a way of thinking designed to remove suffering. If you have a bad dream and see it and yourself as reality you can suffer greatly. If you have a bad life and regard it and yourself as an illusion you can remove the mental disturbances caused by your situation.
well, you know what you are doing, I think you also wish to do it, you do it and if there is a happieness afterwards it will make a deep impression in your mind and you will suffer. you didnt kill the animal but you made somebody to kill some animals again so it isnt really a usefull act to eat beef. but we also have to know that being a human meens till we are enlightment also doing some unusefull things.
The minority comment he uses about buddha not true at least one sutra says its too far reaching to make that kind of statements/claims you could tell "This is for this presumably reason you now suffer etc"....
@agnostoatomo The person who doesn't realize what the Buddha was teaching, the person who believes in his ego, who is not aware of interdependant origination and who does not realize the void nature of ego. If you believe you are Hamlet, you will be a great Hamlet. If you don't really think you are Hamlet, you will be lousy at it. The Buddha was lousy at egotism. I'm much better at it thatn he was. You may be even better than I. I hope not.
Since Ole Lama Nydahl stopped Teaching every things got boring !!
the other crack was since Hannah Died 11!!
Thank you ole:). You should kiss your wife. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh
what is with the racist crap?
People are born into families and situations that allow them to work out their specific karmas, that allow them to learn what their souls want them to learn in that lifetime. This man paints with a very broad brush. Behind all the training, he has very simplistic and silly thought processes, the kind that very typically mark those who might be considered *racist*.