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Dealing with the animals in the world...
I generally prefer to read and not post, but recent events involving Penn State have me a bit upset and I am really not happy with the feelings that are surfacing. I have had to deal with my own abuse as a child, and the fact that my father was discovered later in life to be a predator of children (not me, but friends), so I am used to the subject and by no means am naive about it.
But the depth of this has me appalled. That someone could create a charity with the intention of farming kids to feed his needs, live next to an elementary school, take kids right out of school for his pleasure just astounds me. As I am forced to examine how I would feel if this were my son, one thought keeps going over and over in my head. This guy does not deserve to live. He has no place being in a society with civilized people. In many ways, what he has done is worse than killing someone. He has sentenced them to a lifetime of suffering from his crimes. Trust me when I say you never completely get over it. You can put it into it's proper perspective and have a functioning life, but it will always be there in the background.
It's my understanding that by killing someone you will cause a permanent stain on your Karma and it will follow you through all the rest of your lives. This is the depths of my anger at this. If I found out this were my kid, I think I would take that hit. I think it would be worth sacrificing a bit of myself to make sure an animal like this could never harm my child again. I am not happy to feel this way, nor am I proud of it, but it is what it is.
I guess I still have a long way to go...
Kevin
But the depth of this has me appalled. That someone could create a charity with the intention of farming kids to feed his needs, live next to an elementary school, take kids right out of school for his pleasure just astounds me. As I am forced to examine how I would feel if this were my son, one thought keeps going over and over in my head. This guy does not deserve to live. He has no place being in a society with civilized people. In many ways, what he has done is worse than killing someone. He has sentenced them to a lifetime of suffering from his crimes. Trust me when I say you never completely get over it. You can put it into it's proper perspective and have a functioning life, but it will always be there in the background.
It's my understanding that by killing someone you will cause a permanent stain on your Karma and it will follow you through all the rest of your lives. This is the depths of my anger at this. If I found out this were my kid, I think I would take that hit. I think it would be worth sacrificing a bit of myself to make sure an animal like this could never harm my child again. I am not happy to feel this way, nor am I proud of it, but it is what it is.
I guess I still have a long way to go...
Kevin
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Comments
So the moral of the story is that you should naturally be concerned for all the kids, not just yours. But I'm sure you are. Anyway, I think these are very natural feelings. Don't beat yourself up.
Use your compassion to be vigilant, and to reach out to others when you can help expose harm being done. Someday you may be in a position to create some sort of watchdog agency. If you're familiar with the psychological profile of perpetrators or know their m.o.'s, you could set up a website to inform others. You can channel your emotional energy into constructive (and lawful) efforts.
And I agree, trauma therapy is key.
In light of @Dakini's mention of killing just my thinking but I would leave that up to nature. Or wrathful bodhisattvas. I am not a bodhisattva and if I go to hell I won't have the connection to the dharma to lift myself up.
If you did kill I would get motivated to practice to strengthen the connection and make up for it (in a way at least). Angulimala was a serial killer and I think he became a arhat if I recall.
Also aren't the Jakarta tales part of the Pali Canon thus this line of thought also applies to the Theravada tradition? Just curious
He helped my babysitter and her husband adopt several children from Vietnam in the 70's, turns out my babysitter's husband was a perv too. I do not recall how they knew each other.
I repressed until I was 24, and my first instinct was to drive 20+ hours to go and kill the man who had done that to me too. To this day I doubt that I can forgive him.
Oddly enough a friend of mine whom I have known many years through a mutual friend actually grew up with my abuser - found out via Facebook in the past year that she knew him from growing up, so we talked about him. She feels that he would be embarrassed(!) now by what he'd done then, and that I should forgive him. If someone has never been there it's soooooooo easy to say "forgive".
So far I just cannot find a reason, since he also made attempts to grope me as an adult (18) when my mother got me a job with his company. I do not think a zebra changes its stripes. He hired another pedo who was caught and jailed, no idea why he never was. I would have nailed him to a wall legally had the statutes not expired.
Child abusers are the worst kind, because they ruin so many more lives if the kids they abuse continue the cycle of abuse. Thankfully I had a healthy hatred of child abusers before I realized I had been a victim, and did not perpetuate it further. Guess I knew something somewhere deep.
I respect the fact that in the US there are websites that you can go to to find out where the pervs live to keep your kids away from them, the recidivism rate is very high.
Unforgiving does not necessarily mean anger, it means you acknowledge what they did is not okay, and it will never be okay,ever, for any child, ever.
Of course forgiving is not like saying that the abuse was not so bad after all.
It’s about getting over the anger and hate. We should do that for our own protection and wellbeing.
Carrying around anger and hate is bad for our health.
The key to forgiving is to see beyond the actions.
I think the example is from Ajahn Brahm. We look at the event like it is a hand we have in front of our eyes, we see nothing else.
We have to find a way to start looking at it from a little distance; so we can see more of what is around it. And then some more distance, and some more around it. And so on.
At least in theory, ultimately we see the whole picture and separations fall away.
But for the moment it would be enough when we don’t think of people as “animals”.
i would never dream of trying to put myself in your shoes... i was sexually assaulted as an adult and carried a lot of bad shit around with me for a long time because of it. but i really worked on it... and of course, i am still working on it... i practiced metta (loving kindness) meditation towards the man who assaulted me. like you, i hated him for a very long time. i hated the idea of forgiving him. i didn't think he deserved forgiveness. but more than that... i hated the feelings that i got when i thought about him, about the memory. i hated that i quit doing massage for several years because even the smell of the oil or the fact that i still had those damn sheets for some reason just... stopped me dead in my tracks. these triggers made me shut down for so long. eventually, i just realized that my anger hurt me more than it hurt him. actually, my anger did absolutely nothing to him. forgiving him was like releasing that last little hold that he had upon my life... i was so apprehensive... but in the end, i just felt relief. anger can be such a burden and it was one that i just didn't want to carry around anymore. i didn't want to let him do that to me anymore.
i don't mean to say that it was easy and i don't mean to say that i know for sure that this would work for you (as i said, this happened to me as an adult... not a child. this may make a difference). but i do think that you suffer because of your anger, like i did, and this could be something worth looking into. of course i will never be free of some of the repercussions of this event, like trust issues, etc... but i'm doing the best i can. just thought i should share in case some of this resonates.
it's easy to speak in "what ifs" (like, 'if that were my child') but it's also pointless to do so. be thankful that it isn't and be thankful that you don't have to make that decision.
Martine Batchelor (Stephen's wife) said recently that "we can forgive, but we don't forget. It may be better to speak in terms of healing or closure." I agree, I recommend trauma therapy for people who have had this type of experience. There are some very effective and efficient techniques out there now, that kind of rewire the brain or defuses the memories, so the emotional reaction and other symptoms aren't there anymore. Ask about the one called "EMDR". It was proved to be extremely effective with Vietnam vets suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress. Hugs and heartfelt best wishes to everyone who has suffered assault or molestation.
This is what people say, like you; forgiveness is for oneself, not for the person one is forgiving. An alternative to therapy is acupuncture. Few people know that the acupuncture points govern not only parts of the body but specific emotions, as well. A good acupuncturist can be just as effective with PTSD or with moving anger as a good psychologist, and is a lot cheaper. Alternatively, someone on another thread said that writing down everything they ever wanted to say to their abuser, then destroying the letter and burying it, then literally washing their hands of the whole matter, really helped them cleanse themselves and put the matter behind them. Rituals of that sort can be very effective. Whatever works. I wish you all the peace of mind that you deserve. _/\_
I have long since forgiven myself, not much to forgive really, it was not ever my fault that he crossed a line someplace. I did a lot of work to free myself from the connection of what he created in me. I do not feel anger towards him, nor do I feel charitable thoughts towards him.