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Michigan?
anyone else from here?
0
Comments
i'm a little south in detroit.
Zombiegirl, (((hugs))) I've seen some of your recent post. I'm a noob but I know that our practice will bring closure to your pain. Jeffrey, I must get a bumper sticker with the coexist "logo", it was one of the first things I saw on this site, and it made me feel like this is where I belonged. TheravadaBuddhist, I too, through much research, have begun practicing and exploring Theravada. Do you use dharmaseed.org? I found Steve Armstrong to be a very helpful teacher. From the length of this post, I see it might have been a good idea for me to have continued lurking, lol.
thank you lotus bud, i appreciate your concern and i am quite hopeful as well. i was very hesitant to post because i know that there are so many people who have it so much worse than i. i also learned just how angry experiences like that can make you. i am grateful that i have buddhism to help me see the reality of these emotions, that they actually do more harm to me than anyone else.
dukka is dukka
Mtns
oh, haha. i didn't respond because i had no idea what this meant and whether or not it was even pointed in my direction
yes, i do see what you mean. and i do agree as well. if i had to explain why i wrote that, i guess i would just say that it comes as a result of my dislike of attention (i'm usually a pretty private person). it is hard for me to lay all of my cards on the table for others to judge, so to speak. i feel slightly ashamed sometimes that i struggle so much with my experiences when i know that there are others whom have had it so much worse. this makes me feel insecure about even asking for help. sometimes i think i should just, "get over it already" as some people have suggested such to me.
Zg,
If there is anything you should 'get over'... its the idea that your suffering isn't valid! Our struggles are always subjectively difficult, and I feel it is unhealthy to invalidate (or overcome) our suffering by saying other people have it worse.
However, we can use other people's suffering as a motivation to heal our very own real and potent unhappy experiences... by accepting that healing our own minds will make us available to help others more skillfully. This makes our healing selfless, because we do it for the betterment of all.
With warmth,
Matt
Everybody on the planet, and everybody who has ever lived on the planet can find somebody who is worse off (subjectively) than they are, but that doesn't diminish what's happening to you in the least.
Also, no matter how you feel, rest assured that probably within a literal stone's throw of wherever you're sitting, there are other people feeling the same way. Whether it's happy, lonely, irritated, peaceful, or whatever. You are NOT alone in your feelings. Our society is just so alienated from one another that we don't realize it anymore.
Mtns
Gotta love the forest here, so peaceful and quiet... though a local pack of coyotes have been disturbing my peace. They normally avoid humans but these seem a bit bolder