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Hebrew School Survivor - Genocide of the Soul
Hello Again,
I've really gotten into this forum lately as I become more convinced that Buddhism is the answer to my life and all its suffering. The wisdom of the replies to my previous posts has been priceless.
I have posted that I have a chronic illness and feel like I live in a prison of suffering. The suffering comes in the form of debilitating exhaustion. Yesterday I tried to sit with and explore the exhaustion. Just to see what, if anything, comes up.
When I try to sit with and explore the exhaustion I can't even begin to "drill down" because I'm instantly and overwhelmingly bombarded by the AWFUL OPPRESSIVE reality of my childhood Hebrew School.
Call it Hell's Lowest Level, call it Annilation of the spirit, or Genocide of the Soul. Thats what Hebrew school was. Just the yuckiest place/thing in the world, 3 times a week, for 4 years.
Hebrew School felt like being terrorized and ground down in gravel at the same time. My exhaustion feels like being ground down in gravel and Hebrew school definitely felt like being ground down in gravel - physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I've worked with my therapist on imagining that I go back there and burn down the place, kill the awful teachers, etc. (yes I know buddhists wouldn't approve of this type of thing).
Anyway I just really felt the need to share with you all the oppressive ground-down awfulness that was hebrew school. I don't even know the words to describe something as harrowing and oppresive and annihilating as hebrew school. Mabye "Hebrew School Holocaust"?
Is there any buddhist wisdom that can help me? Please don't say that this experience is my teacher, or is a gift, or some such thing. It feels like a holocaust that crushed too much of my soul to be liberated from it.
I realize I didn't include any details of why Hebrew school was so bad, and people may be wondering "What happened?". But instead of trying to explain it, I'd rather just say that people who have been through abusive and detestable religious schools will probably understand, be it Catholic, Baptist, whatever.
my deepest thanks.
I've really gotten into this forum lately as I become more convinced that Buddhism is the answer to my life and all its suffering. The wisdom of the replies to my previous posts has been priceless.
I have posted that I have a chronic illness and feel like I live in a prison of suffering. The suffering comes in the form of debilitating exhaustion. Yesterday I tried to sit with and explore the exhaustion. Just to see what, if anything, comes up.
When I try to sit with and explore the exhaustion I can't even begin to "drill down" because I'm instantly and overwhelmingly bombarded by the AWFUL OPPRESSIVE reality of my childhood Hebrew School.
Call it Hell's Lowest Level, call it Annilation of the spirit, or Genocide of the Soul. Thats what Hebrew school was. Just the yuckiest place/thing in the world, 3 times a week, for 4 years.
Hebrew School felt like being terrorized and ground down in gravel at the same time. My exhaustion feels like being ground down in gravel and Hebrew school definitely felt like being ground down in gravel - physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I've worked with my therapist on imagining that I go back there and burn down the place, kill the awful teachers, etc. (yes I know buddhists wouldn't approve of this type of thing).
Anyway I just really felt the need to share with you all the oppressive ground-down awfulness that was hebrew school. I don't even know the words to describe something as harrowing and oppresive and annihilating as hebrew school. Mabye "Hebrew School Holocaust"?
Is there any buddhist wisdom that can help me? Please don't say that this experience is my teacher, or is a gift, or some such thing. It feels like a holocaust that crushed too much of my soul to be liberated from it.
I realize I didn't include any details of why Hebrew school was so bad, and people may be wondering "What happened?". But instead of trying to explain it, I'd rather just say that people who have been through abusive and detestable religious schools will probably understand, be it Catholic, Baptist, whatever.
my deepest thanks.
0
Comments
(That is not to say you are inaccurate. but I merely detail it as your perception, for good reason.)
It obviously hasn't had the desired effect, because all you are doing is fuelling their hostility, cruelty and unskillful Actions with more of yours.
Fighting fire with fire may give momentary satisfaction, but it does not work in the long run.
Look at the second quotation in my signature.
If you hate , detest resent, deplore and despise something with all your heart and mind, you cling fast to it and embrace it to you, just as much as if you loved it with all your heart and soul.
It is by releasing the past, and accepting your experience, that you can liberate yourself form the energetic prison you have created for yourself.
By clinging onto the past, you have chosen to carry your own mill-stone around your neck.
All thoughts we have, are a choice.
Read the fifth quotation in my signature.
In whichever way you think, so your states will follow. If you actively and tacitly choose to harbour such resentment towards this school, then your mental state will never change, and this feeling will never pass.
Read the fourth quotation in my signature.
Then, choose.
I just had my teacher speak about non-self or annatta and how it applies to our personal life trials and lessons. When we realize that our suffering is not that different from other people's experiences it helps us realize how trivial these moments really are.
"Buddhism" means "wisdom religion".
If you wish to live a rational, healthy & natural life, then Buddhism offers a reasoned based, healthy, nature-based religion.
For example, Budddhism encourages morality like other religions but it provides clear reasons emphasising the benefits of morality (based in non-harming).
In all of his advice, the Buddha explained the beneficial purpose of that advice.
It is not a commandment but a teaching for your own personal reflection and training.
Buddhism is about helping oneself as an individual rather than conforming to the wishes of an authority.
Best wishes
DDhatu
:smilec:
"Buddha" means 'Awake'.
Buddhism means 'Wakefulness'.
Wisdom is to be achieved through the study and practice of Buddhism.
but Wisdom is not exclusive to Buddhism.
Other religions also give 'reasons for morality based in non-harming. Not harming onself, not harming another'.
The primary teaching the Buddha gave us, was the origin of Suffering, and the cessation of Suffering.
Best start with this, and investigate further, how we are the originators of our own suffering through craving, grasping and unskillful desire.
I think coming to terms with your hatred of Hebrew school is a necessary step along the path to becoming free of that experience. While I agree you will ultimately have to let go of the hatred, it's okay to acknowledge its existence, and to feel anger (or any other feeling) about that oppressive situation in your life.
Just don't allow that feeling to control you, to become a vortex that sucks you down into negativity. Say "I hated it," but recognize that what you hated is now over: it doesn't exist anymore, except in your mind. You're now the only person keeping it alive, and you have the power to choose to let it go, whenever you're ready to do so.
That, to me, is what Buddhism is all about: waking up to the realization that hey, we've got a choice about how we interpret the events in our lives. We can consciously choose to steer our lives in the direction we want them to go, rather than go on being a prisoner to old wounds and past conditioning.
but by very virtue of the fact that he stated he'd worked on them in this way with his therapist, there is more than an implication there of co-operation and encouragement.
Which, in perpetuating the animosity, and vengeful side of the emotion, is both unskillful and inappropriate.
Had his therapist not approved, or advised against such practice, I am relatively sure he would have said so.....
I couldn't agree more.
However, acknowledging is a far cry from visualising burning them down and mentally enacting wreaking vengeance....
My point too.....
Tomato/tomahto?
I really REALLY liked Fed's answer with references to the quotes in the sig file. I found it really poignant anyway.
Respectfully,
Raven
I'm not implying that letting go of your resentment will be simple, but as long as you keep referring back to it, it will have a hold on you.
Accept it was a bad time, find something positive to concentrate on, and move on.
It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.
That being said there are areas in which you can improve. Guess what? That doesn't mean life will give you what you expect, it might even get worse, but at least you are doing something.
The idea we have of happiness is usually completely dependent on things outside ourselves, on the world. We expect samsara to be kind and just with us in the terms of our own ideas of kindness and justice. Well it isn't. That is why there is Buddhism.
Stop thinking of how the world can make you happy or made you unhappy and start thinking of how you can make yourself happy, it is possible.
I know from experience that teachers can create unpleasant or even terrifying experiences for their students. Power is often abused. However, teachers don't have the power to make you spend the rest of your life dwelling on the abuses. That power lies somewhere else.
However, I am trying to train myself to "see things as they really are" (vipassana) without reading meaning into them (even if the meaning seems obvious); so I'm forcing myself to take the OP's words at face value until I know for sure what he means.
So many times in my life, I've been "sure" of some meaning, and acted on that certainty--only to find that I was wrong, in some cases egregiously so. This has caused me many problems!
By the way, I liked your post too.
I just wanted to say that the above comment is what rang alarm bells for me.
Unfortunately, the OP has not revisited this thread, I don't think, so as you all rightly point out, whilst it seems that my assumption may have foundation, I accept equally, that it may not.... I would welcome clarification....
Thank you all, for your comments.
Nice thread.
I hope the OP gleans comfort here.
Like you I suffered in childhood, and still carry that with me now, as tiredness, chronic pain and a complete inability to relax. I started to learn to meditate to deal with these physical issues.
Partly through meditating, I have come to realise that I will only be free of the pain I carry around with me when I let it go, let go the need for restitution, for acknowledgement, validation, comfort. I have spent more than a decade trying to understand why and how my childhood has affected me, and whilst that insight is helpful, it hasn't stopped me carrying the pain around. To be frank, I the only way I'm going to be free of it, is to stop caring - to stop caring about how I was treated as a child, to just give it all up. I am a little locked into my pain, my feelings of injustice, as if it was a treasured posession, but I hope as I go forward in my learning that I will learn to kick the habit.
The belief that "I can never change that feeling", is one of the major hurdles people often place in their own path.
YTR45, when you stated:
"Is there any buddhist wisdom that can help me? Please don't say that this experience is my teacher, or is a gift, or some such thing. It feels like a holocaust that crushed too much of my soul to be liberated from it."
You essentially said this cannot be accepted. It says you are damaged, not stuck. If you were to allow yourself to successfully challenge this belief, contentment is just around the corner.
Thank you. I do find that I struggle with this concept though, even if I have some flashes of insight. I guess I'm finding my own way at the moment, with all the blind alleys that can entail.