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question on buddists

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  • July 9, 2018 at 8:32 pm #216061
    trying to understand
    Participant

    so my home was burglarized in December.  a few weeks later some scuzzy guy came knocking at my door, i think just to see if anyone was home, or if my house might be a good place for the meth heads =conjecture.  I went across the street to ask neighbor if they saw anyone strange hanging around my house could they call the police.  The woman screamed,I will not call the police for you, you  call the police yourself.

    Other neighbors told me they were a house of buddhist nuns.

    i am not familiar with buddhists.

    so am i a horrible person undeserving of help because

    1) I am not home because I have to work for a living?

    2) If the burglars felt I deserved to lose my money, they should be respected

    3) I am not well off enough financially -the buddhist nuns are able to stay home all day and not work, and they can afford a comcast security system,and I guess smart phones cause you need a smart phone for any security system.

    i am just flabberghasted and so want to know why buddhists would scream at me

    thank you for your opinions

    July 10, 2018 at 6:59 am #216125
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear trying to understand:

    Neighbors told you that they are Buddhists and they screamed at you, did I understand correctly?

    If so, the fact that a person says he or she is this or that, doesn’t mean he or she is that thing. Also, whatever they say they are, question is, what do they mean by that thing they say they are, what does “Buddhist” means to them?

    If the people who told you that they are Buddhists did not make it up, if they meant it, then clearly, for them, one can be a Buddhist and yell at a neighbor seeking help, that is, turning against a neighbor who seeks help.

    Action speak louder than words. “Buddhist” is a word. Screaming at you is the action.

    anita

    July 10, 2018 at 12:39 pm #216181
    Peter
    Participant

    Was this your first interactions with you neighbors?

    The response your received from the “Buddhist nuns” did not on the surface conform to Buddhist practice or values as I understand them… But Buddhist are human, and as most humans don’t always live up to their values.

    Your post reminds me of the stories you hear of someone yelling a someone for not paying attention only to learn that that person just lost their father. We don’t usually know everything that may be influencing a encounter, we like to think we know, but we don’t.

    Is it possible you caught your neighbor at a bad time?

    The rule of charity states that if there are more then one way of interpreting an interaction and you can’t or don’t want to investigate the intention then chose the most compassionate interpretation.  The next step would be to ask your neighbor about the encounter or wish them well and look elsewhere for help.

     

    July 12, 2018 at 9:37 pm #216475
    trying to understand
    Participant

    Thank you for your input Peter.  It was my first interaction with my neighbor, even though I have lived in this house for 22 years.  I think it was actually not the owner of the home, but she seems to have multiple “nuns” living there.  I have spoken with a younger one who used to walk her dog up and down and asked her also if she would keep an eye out and she agreed to and said a name of the other woman, which was not the name of the owner of the house.

    Then I really never saw that nice woman again and I felt like she got in trouble for agreeing to call the police if she saw someone breaking in and was sent away.  Her little Casita also disappeared.

    I feel like the message sent was basically to tell me I was scum and leave them alone forever, so I will do so.  I just wanted to understand if this was a buddist doctrine to treat people not able to be home 24/7 like trash, and if the reason being that employment was bad, and a robin hood burglar was a higher form of being than a worker bee who can’t afford security cameras and a smart phone to  monitor them

    July 20, 2018 at 9:10 am #217885
    Lara
    Participant

    Hey Trying to understand,

    sorry that you had such bad luck of suffering a break in and then also strange people lingering in the neighborhood. You took a proactive step in asking the neighbors for help, but you met someone really unfriendly.

    Your neighbor reacted very strangely: “The woman screamed, I will not call the police for you, you call the police yourself.” I can see why you would look for a reason for her rejecting your request, and it seemed you found it: “Other neighbors told me they were a house of buddhist nuns.” . But what if they had said “Its a house full of vegetarian”? “Its a house full of republicans/ democrats”? “It’s a house full of high school teachers”? I think you see where this is going. Unfortunately there are bad apples in every crowd, buddhists, christians, islam, atheist makes no difference.

    One thing I wonder about that is the conclusions that you drew from this one time encounter: “I feel like the message sent was basically to tell me I was scum”. Indeed, that woman treated you badly, but I wonder: do you also believe that you are scum?

     

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