Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

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greentara
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Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by greentara »

"After World War I, the industrial machine mass-producing goods for the allied troops couldn't just shut down without catastrophic losses to the big money men. This was a time when products were advertised mainly for their functionality, practicality and durability, according to the BBC documentary The Century of the Self.

Bernays changed that, using the insights of his famous uncle Sigmund to make us think we wanted crap we did not need.

He found ready disciples, such as consumer goods financier Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers, who wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 1927: “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture.”

“People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

Suffice to say, American industrialists, advertisers and marketers were highly successful at this “retraining” in the mid-20th century. It swept the world and is now so pervasive we don't even realise we have been inculcated"

Sam De Brito
Andrew108
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Andrew108 »

Absolutely. This is THE defining experience of modern life.
The Blessed One said:

"What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." Sabba Sutta.
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

I'm not interested in dramatizing "man's desires". What is your intent in bringing this up? Nobody needs the rhetoric, we know the drill and it is old news. how does this touch your life? Why are you bringing it up?

Frankly, I am tired of hearing modern society demonized. Yes, it is devastating for self and others, my heart is broken .... how can we elevate the gaze for the good of wo-man kind? I am about at the end of projecting bad onto self and other.

How can we meet it? How can we contribute?
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
greentara
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by greentara »

Lindama, I feel society has been captured by advertising to such an extent that unless you have the latest car, phone, gadget or gizmo people feel left behind almost as if they've been by passed. Of course you may not agree and many perhaps do not realise how much advertising influences their lives and spending habits and craving for more. Its often insatiable.
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

It is certainly true Greentara... again, I ask why dramatize it? Those of us who care do not need to waste our time on these questions. And those of us who don't are probably not reading this. So again, I ask, why dramatize this? The world does not need any more religious zealots.

What is in your heart?

btw, I am about sick of hearing about samsara... I'd like to hear how we can help. Feeding the birds or helping a child would be quite enough for starters.

People feel they have been left behind because they don't have the lastest gizmo... are you possibly serious? Let's have a reality check here.... I get a bit emotional this time of year due to my job which is only temporary. It allows me to talk to ppl who are essentially hopeless... they are the ones left behind, forget about gizmos .... their children can't read, who are essentially sentenced to a lifetime of failure due to economics and race. My heart breaks... these ppl are not taken over by desire, still their survival hangs in the balance. I've never had a call like today... Sharon is concerned for her son.... she can't pronounce words, I have to spell letter by letter the word payments and ask her to repeat it back to make sure she got it... she didn't the first time. She wants a reading program for her son who has failed Kindergarten two times, and is going to first grade still not sure of all the letters.

And you &*((^% talk about gizmos... get real!

You know what, Sharon can't spell but I can feel her mother soul... it shines through and there is nothing more that I can do.
Last edited by Lindama on Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
greentara
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by greentara »

Lindama, Ok you sound fed up. I don't blame you as there's so much inequality in the the world.....nuff said!
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

no mistakes... we don't need to speak about dogma and desires... we can only respond to the cries of the world
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
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kirtu
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by kirtu »

Edward Bernays. Wikipedia.

A few things can be pointed out here: Bernays engineered propaganda and consumer culture to control what he saw as dangerous libidinous as well as anti-democratic tendencies in society. Although his crass manipulation of the public preceded the disaster of WW 2, he was clearly traumatized by the rise of Fascism, Nazism and Communism and mistrusted the general population. In so doing, he resulted in rendering the public, at least in the US and the UK, incapable of logically analyzing public messages. I would claim that this inability to analyse messages and to think logically has resulted in as serious an existential threat to a functioning democracy as was posed by the totalitarian juggernauts of the 20th century.

The other thing is that this was intentional and systematic. The rise of blind, unthinking consumerism was not accidental. This has real implications for the possible rise of Trungpa's "secular enlightened society" : it too can be advocated for. People can be trained to value lovingkindness, compassion, cooperation, peace and benevolence rather than abandoned to sense indulgence, cynicism and conflict. And their ability to think logically and harness that power for the betterment of humanity can be reignited.

Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

hello? what is your relation to this? Wiki has no answers for us ... here we are!
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Turn off your TV. Simple.

BTW the admonition that monks live outside of towns is basically the same idea only taking place thousands of years ago; to remove oneself from the group dream state. (TV is manufactured dream state.) That allowed them to focus on escaping their individual dream state.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

Sorry, it is not necessary to discard the world to escape the dream state ... it's a new day, it's a new world.

See for yourself
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Lindama wrote:Sorry, it is not necessary to discard the world to escape the dream state ... it's a new day, it's a new world.

See for yourself
"Awakening" is awakening from the dream state. When the Buddha was asked if he was a god or a man, he said, "I am awake."
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
plwk
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by plwk »

Thanks greentara, now I know why my mom has such a huge collection of handbags and flower pots and dresses...
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garudha
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by garudha »

Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

I read the title and thought "wants exceeding needs is a margin of safety which would be inherent for survival".

Unfortunately, Man is not very good at giving.
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kirtu
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by kirtu »

smcj wrote:Turn off your TV. Simple.
No, it's not as simple as turning off the TV although mass media is obviously a major vector. In the US and the UK (and to a slightly lesser extent in Germany) rigorous public thought is impossible outside of a controlled, acceptable range. It's one reason why the US is hyperconservative. An example of this is the consensual labeling of Democrats as "liberal" and Republicans as "conservative" (or to some people as "moderates"). These labels are meaningless for the most part but are as accepted and *required* element of public discourse.

The fundamental conceptual modeling that has been accomplished through mass marketing and propaganda is pervasive. It also goes far beyond the TV.

Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

smcj wrote:
Lindama wrote:Sorry, it is not necessary to discard the world to escape the dream state ... it's a new day, it's a new world.

See for yourself
"Awakening" is awakening from the dream state. When the Buddha was asked if he was a god or a man, he said, "I am awake."
Awakeing from the dream state has nothing to do with our exterior reality. I repeat, it is not necessary to escape the world to be awake.
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

garudha wrote:Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

I read the title and thought "wants exceeding needs is a margin of safety which would be inherent for survival".

Unfortunately, Man is not very good at giving.
Do you know that to be true? ... man is not good at giving?

There is good at giving by many unseen in the world...

We need not generalize on the capacity of man to give... let's start small, with ourselves.
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Lindama wrote:
smcj wrote:
Lindama wrote:Sorry, it is not necessary to discard the world to escape the dream state ... it's a new day, it's a new world.

See for yourself
"Awakening" is awakening from the dream state. When the Buddha was asked if he was a god or a man, he said, "I am awake."
Awakeing from the dream state has nothing to do with our exterior reality. I repeat, it is not necessary to escape the world to be awake.
Necessary? Not for everyone. There are many paths and many people with differing capacities. Some people can be in the middle of uproar and awaken (think HHDL's life). But for a large number of practitioners they/I can't approach the problem of the individual dream without first distancing oneself from the group dream to some extent. Turning off your TV is an easy way to distance oneself from today's group dream and is not "escaping the world".
Last edited by Schrödinger’s Yidam on Sat Apr 05, 2014 8:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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oushi
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by oushi »

Beholding and taking control of the unconscious is the crux of this matter. Tame the Ox or Elephant, and don't let it be tamed by the greedy ones.
Say what you think about me here.
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Lindama
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Re: Mans desires must overshadow his needs!

Post by Lindama »

smjc.... I have not had TV in 25 years.... still, I have no escaped...

it's a matter of individual practice. I am not advocating. I am simply saying that we need not put distance from the world as the path. This world needs Bodhisattvas who engage the world head on as they are moved. Ofc, some are not ready, let's give them space too.
Not last night,
not this morning,
melon flowers bloomed.
~ Bassho
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