Human beings “behaving like beasts of burden” is one of the oldest metaphors in Tibetan Buddha‑Dharma for how ignorance, craving, and clinging make us carry loads that were never ours to begin with. Your question weaves together three strands:
- how samsaric conditioning makes humans act in ways that obscure their awakened nature,
- how an enlightened society would look if awareness guided action,
- how the Two Truths explain this tension between delusion and awakening.
What follows brings these together in a way that honours the depth you’re reaching for.
1. How humans become “beasts of burden” in Dharma terms
The image appears in many Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna commentaries: beings bent under the weight of their own mental afflictions, driven by impulses they mistake for freedom.
The burdens we carry
- Attachment to bodily desires — pleasure, comfort, stimulation, status, appearance. These become reins that pull us around.
- Attachment to mental desires — identity, opinions, narratives, self‑importance, being right, being seen.
- Habitual reactivity — anger, fear, craving, jealousy, pride. These become the yoke.
In Tibetan terms, this is the activity of kleshas (nyon mongs) and karma (las). The tragedy is not that humans are sinful or flawed, but that they forget their nature and live as if they were pack animals driven by instinct.
Why this happens
- Ignorance (avidyā / ma rig pa): the root confusion that mistakes the constructed self for something solid.
- Dualistic fixation: “I must protect me from others.”
- Cultural conditioning: societies built on competition, scarcity, and fear reinforce the illusion.
From this perspective, humans aren’t “bad”; they are asleep, carrying loads they don’t realise they can put down.
In times of Kaliyuga as can be seen, the intense self-clinging, (both outer and inner in the mind), brings forth great suffering, where mind is not otherwise introduced to, and schooled in awareness. The intense self-clinging leads to fighting and dispute. The self-clinging creates dualistic reality, (on the relative/ conventional level- self-clinging experience in the mind), which is different to the true nature of non-dual reality.
2. What enlightened action and an awakened society look like
Tibetan Dharma often describes an enlightened society not as utopian perfection but as a collective shift in perception.
Features of an awakened society
- Interdependence recognised as fact, not philosophy People act knowing that harming another harms oneself.
- Compassion as the default motivation Not sentimental compassion, but the fierce clarity of bodhicitta.
- Ethics arising from awareness, not rules When the mind is clear, harmful actions naturally fall away.
- Collective humility A society that knows it is learning, not performing enlightenment.
This is close to what you called a “new earth”: not a new planet, but a new way of seeing the one we already inhabit.
What enlightened action looks like in daily life
- Responding rather than reacting.
- Acting from spaciousness rather than fear.
- Seeing others as subjects, not objects.
- Letting go of the need to win, dominate, or defend a fixed identity.
- Choosing generosity over accumulation.
This is not passive. It is active non‑harm, active clarity, active compassion.
3. The Two Truths: why humans appear deluded yet are already free
Your question beautifully points to the heart of Madhyamaka and Dzogchen: the tension between relative truth and ultimate truth.
Relative truth (kun rdzob bden pa)
This is the world of:
- duality
- cause and effect
- emotions
- identities
- social structures
- suffering and confusion
On this level, humans do behave like beasts of burden because they believe the burdens are real, solid, and personal.
Ultimate truth (don dam bden pa)
This is the world of:
- emptiness (śūnyatā)
- selflessness (anātman)
- nondual awareness
- luminous clarity (rigpa)
- the inseparability of appearance and emptiness
On this level, there is no burden, no carrier, no one to be enslaved, and no one to be liberated.
How the Two Truths work together
- On the relative level, we practise ethics, meditation, compassion, and wisdom.
- On the ultimate level, we recognise that the one who practises is empty, the practice is empty, and the result is empty.
This is not nihilism. It is freedom.
The Two Truths explain why:
- humans seem trapped,
- yet their nature is already free.
4. Bringing it together: why we fall into delusion and how we rise from it
The human condition in Tibetan Dharma is a paradox:
- We behave like beasts of burden because we forget our nature.
- We can create an enlightened society because our nature was never lost.
The path is not about becoming something new; it is about remembering.
The shift from burdened to awakened being
- From grasping → to spaciousness
- From self‑fixation → to interdependence
- From reactivity → to awareness
- From survival mode → to compassionate presence
- From duality → to nondual clarity
This is the movement from samsara to nirvana, which are not two places but two ways of perceiving the same reality.
5. A question to deepen your exploration
When you look at your own experience, where do you most clearly feel the “beast of burden” conditioning — and where do you already sense the luminous, unburdened nature shining through?