What somebody else is doing someplace else: The media tell us that that’s more important and that you’re just a loser sitting here watching TV or listening to the radio or on the web, absorbing what the real actors in the world are doing.

"Our actions are the important things in the world. What we’re doing right here, right now: That’s the most important thing — which is very different from the message that we get from everybody else. The news presented by the media is about what somebody else is doing someplace else: They tell us that that’s more important and that you’re just a loser sitting here watching TV or listening to the radio or on the web, absorbing what the real actors in the world are doing. Then you get sucked into the illusion that, “Well, maybe if I send out a message, I’ll become an important actor, too.”

But, actually, the really important things in your life are things that nobody else can know: what you’re doing in your mind. This is important because what you do in the mind then becomes the basis for what you say, what you do, what you think. So that’s one way to tune into the Dhamma.

When you see or hear anything that helps to support that, you know you’re seeing and listening to the Dhamma. As for anything that pulls attention away from that, you know you’re listening to something that’s not Dhamma."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pissing on Palaces" (Meditations6)

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