Do you watch tv?

A place to discuss casual topics amongst spiritual friends.
Digity
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Do you watch tv?

Post by Digity »

Tomorrow I plan to cancel my cable tv subscription. I'm just so bored of tv and barely ever watch it anymore. I might get Netflix, but we'll see. Do most people here watch tv? I think the more I've gotten into the practice the less interested I've become spending my time watching television. I think there's a correlation.
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Crazy cloud
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Crazy cloud »

Been watching less on all plattforms, including tv. Finds information to be less and less relevant to my major "walking business".

guess i'm going for "all in" pretty soon

one long pure beautiful road of pain
and the beauty of death and no pain


:candle:
If you didn't care
What happened to me
And I didn't care for you

We would zig-zag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain

Wondering which of the
Buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing
- Roger Waters
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Vern Stevens
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Vern Stevens »

I still watch TV, but I'm finding that I'm losing interest in certain types of shows/movies.

I'm still very much a fan of The Walking Dead though. This is more of a thinking/philosophical show than I think many people give it credit for. Once you get past the zombies being monsters, you can see that they simply represent another obstacle for humanity to overcome (plagues, wars, famine) and that the real struggle remains how dealing with our fellow man represents the greatest threat or the greatest asset. The characters continually face moral choices and the fact that life can be fleeting is ever present with the loss of several major characters throughout the series.
“What we think, we become.“ - The Buddha
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Aloka
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Aloka »

Digity wrote:Tomorrow I plan to cancel my cable tv subscription. I'm just so bored of tv and barely ever watch it anymore. I might get Netflix, but we'll see. Do most people here watch tv? I think the more I've gotten into the practice the less interested I've become spending my time watching television. I think there's a correlation.
Hi Digity,

I very rarely watch TV these days- maybe a couple of programs a week. I also don't watch movies or read fiction stories any more, because I lost interest in occupying my mind with illusory situations and fantasies created by other people.

with kind wishes,

Aloka :)
kilanta
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by kilanta »

I watch documentaries and dhamma talks from Youtube quite frequently, but don't own an actual television apparatus and haven't had one since 90s. So yes, I watch tv in a way.
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BlackBird
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by BlackBird »

Mostly BBC Knowledge/World, Nat Geographic & History. I record shows on Soho (NZ Sky's HBO/AMC chan) - It's not all boob tubes, but I can understand cancelling your cable.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Sam Vara
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Sam Vara »

I gave away my TV about five years ago, and have not regretted it once. Most of my time spent watching TV was utterly wasted. I have the fond idea that a small number of TV programmes are well made and have artistic merit, but when I see TV now (for example on holiday, or on-line to catch something people tell me I have "just got to watch!") I find it all mildly irritating. It just looks crude and predictable in form and content.
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Viscid
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Viscid »

I mainly stick to youtube content, and that's mostly of lectures/music/docs, with a couple personalities thrown in. For TV, I'll download an entire series, but in the past few years that's been limited to Breaking Bad. Soon I'll watch Game of Thrones, mostly because it's become a fairly important shared mythos and I am doing a grave disservice to my friends by making them feeling guilty about discussing events in the show without my having watched it. Which they do quite often.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
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Mojo
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Mojo »

I quit paying for cable because of the expense Oct 11 and am in an area where I can't get digital reception, so I've been just watching dvds from the library since. I don't ever plan on paying for cable or satelite again, though I'd get an antenna someday if my geography permits to watch PBS. I hate commercials. I didn't realize how badly till I was without them for a few days.
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manas
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by manas »

I allow myself to watch TV, if there's something that is both interesting and not too unwholesome on. But due to both of those criteria hardly ever being met, I too find myself watching less and less as time passes. But in my experience actually throwing out the TV set and thus making it impossible, isn't necessarily the best way to reduce TV watching. I got rid of my set once and ended up regretting it, and having to get another one (free and off the side of the road, thankfully). I find that if one lives alone and sometimes spends an entire day hardly ever seeing anyone else, that a bit of TV in the evening can sometimes alleviate that feeling of isolation. But it just can't compete with the Internet anymore. Most of what's on TV is really low-grade stuff, and being able to search for quality videos on places like youtube is a much better way to get one's entertainment fix, if that is what one needs. So I would say I'm down to just a few hours a week now, and not by any act of willpower, just because it's mostly so very dull and boring.

:anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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Mindstar
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Mindstar »

I watch TV only rarely and i avoid anything with violence in it as everything has an effect on the mind.
Most of the time i watch some funny show for a good laugh. The only show i`m watching regularly (on the internet) is Running Man.
Never fails to make me smile love the humour.
I also watch japanese shows for entertainment occasinally as i find the mix of kawaii and funny very enjoyable.
If i`m in the mood/mind state for something intellectual i watch Dhamma Tube.
manas wrote:II find that if one lives alone and sometimes spends an entire day hardly ever seeing anyone else, that a bit of TV in the evening can sometimes alleviate that feeling of isolation. But it just can't compete with the Internet anymore. Most of what's on TV is really low-grade stuff, and being able to search for quality videos on places like youtube is a much better way to get one's entertainment fix, if that is what one needs. So I would say I'm down to just a few hours a week now, and not by any act of willpower, just because it's mostly so very dull and boring.

:anjali:
I totally agree as i´m living on purpose alone too. I try to practice but in between i allow myself to enjoy a little bit of entertainment also as i´m only meeting friends at the weekends.

Higher than lordship over all earth,
Higher than sojourning in heavens supreme,
Higher than empire over all the worlds,
Is Fruit of Entrance to the Dhamma Stream.
—Dhammapada
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Ben
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Ben »

What on earth are you people talking about?
TV is good for you.

Seriously, TV is just a medium and is only as good or as bad is what you choose to consume, uncritically.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Kim OHara
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Kim OHara »

Ben wrote:What on earth are you people talking about?
TV is good for you.

Seriously, TV is just a medium and is only as good or as bad is what you choose to consume, uncritically.
kind regards,

Ben
"choose to consume, uncritically"? The problem is often that people don't actually choose at all, just switch the thing on - though I'm glad to see not many people here fall into the trap.
Like most who have answered already, I don't watch much (in my case, usually half an hour of news per day plus occasional nature or science doco's and even more occasional drama) and I'm gradually shifting to viewing online anyway. Cable/satellite? Never had it, never wanted it.

:popcorn:
Kim
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Ben
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Ben »

Hi Kim,
Kim O'Hara wrote: "choose to consume, uncritically"? The problem is often that people don't actually choose at all, just switch the thing on.
And switching the TV on is something they are choosing to do, right?
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
Spiny Norman
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Re: Do you watch tv?

Post by Spiny Norman »

I'd like to think there is a meditation practice called "Mindfulness with TV", but I haven't been able to find it in the suttas yet.... :tongue:
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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