Home→Forums→Spirituality→Buddhism; has it helped you?
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January 7, 2018 at 8:44 am #185397
LiamParticipantHi everyone,
I apologise if this post it a little long and/or melodramatic but I am at a juncture in my life where I need to make some decisions about both who I am and who I want to be. If there is anyone who practices Buddhism on the site here I was hoping you could lend me some advice or maybe share your experience.
Essentially, I am at a bit of a loss. I am very unhappy in life in terms of where I’ve been, where I am and where I can see myself heading. I have suffered, less than some, more than others, for a number of different reasons and because of this I hold a large amount of anger, frustration, regret and, to be honest, hatred at the world and as of late, other people. As such I can feel myself splitting in to two different versions of me. One who is who I used to be; kind, loving, caring, compassionate and hopeful. The other who I fear I am turning in to; the best way I can describe this other version of myself is, evil. Full of negative emotions, unwilling to care or help or love and this terrifies me.
I really don’t think there can be a middle ground with this. I’ve tried, but it ends up with me exhibited the worst parts of both with very little of the good. I kind of feel like I need to embrace fully one of these versions of myself. Trying to get back to who I was, there version of me that I love or just giving in and allowing myself to become the person and can see forming; that person isn’t what I want but, with a history of mental health problems, it’s feeling more and more like it’s what I need to be to survive.
I’ve always held an interest in Buddhism, the philosophical side at least and I’ve been reading a lot more about it as of late and frankly at this point I feel like it is my last hope for saving the person I used to be. So my question to you is this; has Buddhism positively affected your life? If so, how?
January 7, 2018 at 5:15 pm #185511
PaulParticipantHi Liam,
I have had mental health problems before,and I have also been a buddhist for some years.I feel that all religion well not all religion but most is good for mental health surveys support this.Also buddhism is a very therapeutic religion.Nevertheless it may take time for it to work for you,and you may face ups and downs in the process, Rome wasn’t built in a day.About four four and a half years ago,I was in a terrible state.I am better in part due to the buddhism but not only because of it.So I would recommend it whilst remaining patient.The feelings you are expressing have been familiar to me at times.
Best wishes
Paul
January 8, 2018 at 9:35 am #185613
AnonymousGuestDear Liam:
I am not a Buddhist. I do practice a few Buddhist principles as they were taught to me in the psychotherapy I attended. I also read quite a bit, at the time on Buddhist principles, what you referred to as its “philosophical part”, I believe.
You asked: “has Buddhism positively affected your life? If so, how?”
My answer will be regarding what you mentioned in your post, the Middle Ground principle:
I too wanted to be, at many times in my life, this or that. I wanted to behave this way or that way. It was a matter of performance at the time although I didn’t know it then. If was as if someone was watching me and I wanted to follow that person/ entity’s rules and expectations.
It never worked for me, to have in mind a particular version of myself and then actualize it.
What I have learned from my personal experience is that the hurts of past, the anger over it, these have to be attended to. There is no way to brush these strong emotions aside and get rid of them. Attending to them is not intellectually understanding their origin- this is an academic kind of understanding, and so, it doesn’t change one’s life. It is an emotional understanding that is coupled with the intellectual, or rational understanding that changes one’s life.
I have thoughts regarding the two versions you described but I don’t know if you are interested in those. If you are, let me know.
anita
January 8, 2018 at 12:07 pm #185653
PeterParticipantFrom what I read in your post I think Buddhist practices and community could be a great benefit to you.
You may not always agree with the teachings you hear from one teacher to the next… and its not expected of you to agree. The goal is not to come up with a list of rules to follow but to work through what you learn and discover your truth. With any practice, philosophy and or religion we can ‘miss the mark’ if we get lost in the words and lose sight of what the words point towards. (the map is not the territory – words are symbols)
You may also find it helpful to do some shadow work. Just google shadow work. I liked the book – Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche – by Robert A. Johnson
January 8, 2018 at 12:47 pm #185661LiamParticipantThanks very much for the replies, it’s good to know there is a degree of there. Anita, I’m definitaly interested in hearing more, always nice to have fresh perspectives on things.
January 9, 2018 at 6:09 am #185719AnonymousGuestDear Liam:
You wrote: “I need to make some decisions about who I am and who I want to be…I used to be; kind, loving, caring, compassionate and hopeful… I am turning to;… evil. Full of negative emotions, unwilling to care or help or love… I need to embrace fully one of these versions of myself”.
A synonym of the word version is form. Form is “the visible shape of something”, an appearance.
There is another principle of Buddhism as I know it, other than the middle ground principle, and that is seeing reality as it is, the bare reality, peeling off appearances, forms, versions and unnecessary complexities and seeing what is underneath, the simple, bare and minimal truth.
These two versions, these two appearances are just that, appearances. Not a good idea to go back to the first or to manifest the second. Abandon both.
Go to the basics, what is underneath: the anger is underneath, isn’t it? It was there during the first version. It is there now. Underneath the anger there is hurt. It was there during the first version and it is there now. These need to be attended to.
When these are attended to, then the love you felt more of before, will be released from its current trapping. It too, is still there, underneath.
Healing from those early hurts is not a matter of intellect alone, it requires emotional understanding, an emotional knowing. Can’t make up for the lack of emotional understanding by intellectual understanding.
If you would like, post again, and I will reply further, anytime you choose.
anita
March 11, 2018 at 9:05 am #196709
Eric TanParticipantHi Liam,
Sounds like you’re really struggling and definitely not wanting to become a destructive and angry person (I think you said “evil”). I second what Anita said above that Buddhism helps by allowing us to actively engage with our negative emotions and transform them through this process of engagement. It is therefore a difficult thing to do, because from what you’ve written, you worry about becoming overtaken by these very same negative emotions that you are carrying inside. Also, it is just as Paul had said, that you might still struggle even as you practice some aspects of Buddhism. What helps is a community as Peter recommended, as well as additional help in terms of possibly some psychotherapy.
If you are interested in Buddhism in a no-frills way, try looking at some of the stuff Brad Warner (http://hardcorezen.info/) has written. He’s an American Zen priest that with a no-nonsense approach and is honest about his own life struggles and how he attempts to use his Buddhist practice to “survive” life. As you can tell, I’m a fan of his.
Good luck!
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