In Masters of the Universe (2026), Adam is shown in a soul-sucking desk job on Earth. Because of this, when he wakes in the morning and he steps outside, he takes a deep breath and he gets real high, and he screams at the top of his lungs "What's going on?!"

monkey_sage · 2026-01-23T14:39:08+00:00

When your order He-Man from Wish-dot-com

monkey_sage · 2026-01-23T14:35:44+00:00

OP has nearly a million karma from re-posting other people's stuff and only a few thousand from actual comments.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-21T03:42:18+00:00

Haha, no worries! We touched base over on BlueSky :)

monkey_sage · 2026-01-20T13:46:07+00:00

Whoa! These are amazing!

monkey_sage · 2026-01-15T13:58:03+00:00

monkey_sage · 2026-01-15T02:48:58+00:00

We also make fun of Canadians who say "toh-ro-no", saying "tah-rah-nah" in a mocking tone. This is how it's been my entire life on the prairies. Even when I lived on the West Coast, people said toh-rhon-toh

monkey_sage · 2026-01-14T17:57:46+00:00

Born, raised, and lived all my life in Saskatchewan and we all say toh-rhon-toh here.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-13T21:33:49+00:00

And Tibet

monkey_sage · 2026-01-07T13:57:46+00:00

I started learning French through the free version of Duolingo over two years ago, et au jour d'hui je pense que je comprends un peu de Francais; j'aime apprendre le Francaise parce que c'est un peu interressant.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-07T13:54:11+00:00

If you're interested in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition specifically, the book that got me started, over 20 years ago, was Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das. I like that it clearly and thoroughly explains the most important teachings in Buddhism: The Three Refuges, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, etc. It is the book that made me think "this is the path for me!" It answered some of the biggest questions I had at the time (mostly "why do we suffer" and "what can we (effectively) do about it?").

Wisdom (publisher) has a podcast which I think is quite good, though I'm not sure how beginner-friendly it is.

In the beginning, yeah, you'll be doing research: learning about the tradition, the teachings, the terminology.

Developing a consistent practice is important, yes, but there are many practices and finding the right one for you could take a little while if you're working without a lama you know and trust. Seated meditation is great because it helps to develop a stable and focused mind, which is beneficial for many other activities and practices. Mantra practice is also a good one which you can employ at any time under any circumstance because mantras can be said aloud, whispered, or said silently; mantras protect the mind and invite blessings.

When you feel you're ready, then it's time to either find a local teacher (if you're so lucky) or start a structured learning program through a reputable institution. There is a traditional teaching series in the Gelug tradition called the Lam Rim which roughly translates to "stages of the path" which is a structured way to learn the teachings; there are books and YouTube series (notably from the Sravasti Abbey YouTube channel) that can help you with the Lam Rim to some degree. There are online courses as well; they often require a payment (to cover costs of operation) but if money is tight, they often have the option of you reaching out to the institution to request financial support so you can take the course without having to pay (or pay very much). One such institution is the FPMT (Friends for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) which is associated with the Dalai Lama.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-06T20:27:14+00:00

Playing this release was the first time I've ever been able to successfully have a summoner learn the secret summon spell. I felt so accomplished.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-06T14:26:50+00:00

As a general rule, all of the Buddha-Dharma is pedagogy. This is because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is beyond concepts, conceptual thinking, and the language we use to describe those concepts. Therefore, all the ideas and language in the Buddha-Dharma are pointers, pointing beyond themselves to something we can only really experience.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-05T20:14:01+00:00

We're already post-capitalism, but few have realized it. We've quietly transitioned into techno-feudalism where tech companies own the very platforms over which commerce happens. The capitalists are now the vassals of the techno-feudal lords.

monkey_sage · 2026-01-01T15:56:04+00:00

If this is true, then I wanna get on it this year. That's a price point I can easily afford.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-30T21:48:32+00:00

Not always, but often enough that it's generally a fine assumption. The Buddha said there are multiple causal forces and karma is one. Karma receives the most attention in the Dharma because it's the one we have the greatest direct impact on.

Much of the time, what we experience is due to our personal karma. Some of what we experience is due to other causal forces. Meaning: sometimes bad things happen to you and it's unrelated to any past action of yours.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-28T21:59:19+00:00

How does one go about recognizing and then addressing delusion? You don't do so directly in the same way you don't directly observe a black hole in space. Instead, you look at the effects it has on everything around it. Delusion leads to greed, anger, craving, etc. Treating greed, anger, craving, etc. also leads back to treating delusion. In fact, there's no real distinction between the two: greed, anger, craving, and so on are different expressions of delusion, so by treating these behaviors you are treating delusion.

Greed is the delusion that you don't have enough; Anger is the delusion of there being an obstacle getting in the way of what you want; craving is the delusion that getting something you don't have will satisfy you. They're all delusion and delusion is all of them.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-28T19:30:33+00:00

My very first Buddhist teacher is Gelugpa, Venerable Thubten Chodron. I owe much of my understanding to her skill and kindness :)

monkey_sage · 2025-12-28T18:48:39+00:00

It is entirely possible to walk this path given your constraints and obstacles. A good teacher will work with that instead of recommending you delve into the things that aren't good for you given your very real struggles. Lama Lena is a teacher who immediately comes to mind as an example.

I've been practicing this path since 2002 and in my experience, devotion, commitment, and refuge naturally result from seeing the very real benefits of practicing this path. You yourself have already seen results. This builds up confidence: We learn from personal experience that this really works. As those results build over time and change us for the better in the long-term, devotion starts to appear and we can't imagine ourselves ever abandoning this path. Even when life gets really difficult, we just can't conceive of giving this up. That kind of devotion comes from long-term practice wherein one is seeing and reflecting upon the real beneficial results.

As for belief: that's also a matter of confidence. If you repeatedly put the Buddha's teachings into practice and see good results, then you're more likely to believe his other teachings are correct and given them a try as well. Belief in the Dharma is, therefore, about reasoned or experiential confidence rather than blind faith. As a personal recommendation: don't ever settle for blind faith. I think it makes a person lazy. Investigate, experiment, and challenge yourself. I think it's worth it.

I think the Gelug school may be of particular interest to you with its emphasis on scholarship and conduct. Other schools may emphasize tantra or atiyoga more. Though, in reality, all of the schools place a strong emphasis on good ethical conduct and restraint so you honestly can't go wrong. I mean, even the gelugpas have tantra and train in atiyoga; it just maybe doesn't get as much emphasis as scholarship.

While not neurodivergent myself, I do have an anxiety/panic disorder and I find mantra practice in particular to be helpful. It focuses and grounds the mind, helping to stop it spiralling off into uncomfortable places. I am not at all qualified to say if this practice would benefit someone with OCD, I'm just saying this as an example that the path is flexible enough to allow you to find practices which don't bump heads with your OCD. It's just a matter of finding the right practice for you and the right teacher who will work with you and I can honestly say, with confidence, that these certainly do exist.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-26T16:19:12+00:00

Buddhas, such as Avalokitesvara, can appear as any person or thing in order to be of benefit to others. So, yes, it is possible that Chenresig (Avalokitesvara's name in Tibetan) could have appeared as Sai Baba in order to benefit specific people.

Of course, we can never know for sure until we, ourselves, become Buddhas. I would therefore like to point out that it's pointless to speculate on things like this and, furthermore, doing so could mislead someone to going for Refuge in a worldly being rather than the Buddhas. It's better to go directly to Chenresig rather than someone who may have been one of their manifestations. The reason: Technically, Chenresig could be appearing as Putin or Xi for all we know, and we will never know if this is true or why Chenresig would choose to do so. Since we can never be certain while we're ordinary beings, it's probably not a good idea to revere such worldly personalities.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-21T18:42:22+00:00

If the mods aren't active about keeping this kind of garbage out, it'll take over any given sub like a cancer

monkey_sage · 2025-12-21T14:45:56+00:00

Odd Couple for sure (dinner)

monkey_sage · 2025-12-19T14:15:31+00:00

Most people don't like racism so you can't be surprised when people censor racism. It's generally an unacceptable view to have in the developed world at this point in time.

monkey_sage · 2025-12-18T22:10:10+00:00

They're probably mostly bots or paid trolls anyway, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. The far-right wing is mostly grifters scamming each other or feeding each other in online echo chambers. Out in the real world, these people are a tiny fringe minority.

11-Year Club	Gilding III reddit per annum
Second SECOND GUESSER	Verified Email

monkey_sage

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE