Title: "A beautiful friend.. brutally murdered..." : trauma, transpersonal psychology and soul work. And Dhammapada.

Key phrases : existential pain, suffering and impermanence, murder of a friend, the way the universe does or should work, soul work and liberation, transpersonal psychology and existential psychology.

Summary : Personal emotional freedom is an inside job. So what is important on the basic human level is to learn to listen to and understand ourselves, and to recognize we have to be bigger than our problems.

KT says
The following is excepted from a tribe post. Following this post, I have given two responses to reframe the issue.
It is possible to say a lot more, from the standpoints of existential psychology and Buddhist psychology alike. For the moment the basic goal is to talk about "being brave" + developing a self-dialogue, as a response to severe emotional challenges ( such as irrational violence in the world ), and as a main means of facing personal pain and existential crises in our lives.

Also, the Guru Sakyammuni said
"Everything that is conditioned passes. Be your own light."
There are good translations of the Dhammapada, the sayings of Sakyamuni Buddha. Keeping a copy at hand in a time of deep personal pain is a remarkably helpful therapy in itself. I first read and reread the Dhammapada in seventh grade, and have never outgrown it.
www.amazon.com/Dhammapada...pd_bbs_sr_2

The teaching of Guru Sakyamuni is well established as a main way people learn to work with suffering and impermanence, so it is reasonable to mention Buddhadharma in this context, as well. It has been shown repeatedly that non-Buddhists or people with no specific religious orientation can benefit greatly from the Dhaammapada in times of emotional distress or debilitating personal disorientation. You could classify it under "transpersonal psychology" and "logotherapy", or existential psychology. It is both.

See
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy
and
www.logotherapyinstitute.org/
as a formal bridge between modern psychology and the psychology of Guru Sakyamuni Buddha.

It is important to keep in mind that the personal tragedy that someone faces is *never* the right time for proselytizing any religious belief or promoting some money-making operation. Instead, what is most helpful, at a basic human level, is simply to listen, to ourselves and to others. There is an extraordinarily helpful book on this:
"Focusing", by Eugene Gendlin, PhD.
www.amazon.com/Focusing-E...pd_bbs_sr_1

Please note that what is said here is In No Way a substitute for either yoga sadhana or individual counseling or whole person wellness care, such as acupuncture, herbal medicine and so forth. In a difficult situation use a broad spectrum of modalities. The goal here is to provide some perspective for those who experience deep emotional vulnerability or wounding resulting from a devastating life event.

Every authentic Buddhist teacher is, one way or another, a capable psychologist, and I am hopefully of some help. I have in fact worked effectively with some brutalized and traumatized individuals, women in particular. In the dharmic lineages ( Hindu or Buddhist ) it is emphasized that one of the most important ways to "help oneself" is to be of service to others, i.e. good karma. This is also very much true on a basic psychological or intrapsychic level.

May this be beneficial. Sarva mangalam.


-KT

P says
"I had a beautiful fairy friend....
She was a shining spirit - full of life and creativity....
But most of all - she was the embodiment of Pure, Unconditional Love....
She loved everybody - always smiling - always saying "hello Love", "goodbye Love"...
Always singing "Love, Love, Love"....
Her life was a work of art and her being was pure inspiration and joy....
I loved her - everyone she ever met loved her....

"Then I found out she was brutally murdered....
She was in Asia - home alone - someone tried to rob her - she fought back and was stabbed to death....
Grief, shock and disbelief overcame me....

"I could not get my head around it - I could not believe that this could happen to one of the most wonderful people on this earth....
she did not deserve to go like this....
I could not imagine the fear and terror she must have felt with her last breath....
the thought of it made me physically ill....

"I understand that we all must die....
and yes, it's tragic that she had to pass - her time had come - etc....
But NOT like this - how could someone so peaceful and full of unconditional love and light suffer her last day of life like this....
This can not be the way - this is just not fair - this can't be the way the universe works - it just can't.....

"A week had passed after I heard the news...
I couldn't come to terms with it....
I was listening to a Pema Chodron discourse on audio....
I was deep in a meditative state...
Then Pema Chodron said "whatever you choose to be aware of - the universe will serve up the opposite to help you become more aware...
if you want to practice patience - the universe will give you irritating situations so you can become aware of your impatience....
if you want to practice mindfulness - the universe will give you mind-less situations so you can become more aware...."

"At that moment I received a download from the universe....
My friend was murdered because she believed in unconditional love.... she WAS the embodiment of Unconditional Love...
so she was killed in the worst way in order for her soul to practice and forgive and unconditionally love her killer....
This was her soul lesson...
If she did - her soul would not come back to this earth plane as a human - but ascend to the next realm of Angels and Muses....
The universe always unfolds for our greatest good - to bring our souls closer to source....
The universe only gives you what you can handle.... and her soul must have been so close to pure that she could handle it....
otherwise it wouldn't have been so....

"This was the message I received....
and at that moment I felt like I understood....
and an awesome presence of peace came over me....
"she can do it" - I thought... she can transcend....!
I wholeheartedly believed this message - I truly believed that she was liberated from the mortal bondage of death and re-birth and that she has now gone to somewhere higher - where her love and light could do so much more profound work than on this human realm...

"Today they found her killer....
he sold the things he had stolen from her home for $300...
that was all her life was worth... 300 dollars....
And instantly, that peace I had felt before vanished....
Instead I heard a voice in my head telling me that what I had realized before - what I thought was a download from the universe - was just my mind's way of rationalizing this heinous crime.... because I could not emotionally handle her death....
The voice said that there is no justice in this universe....
and that my friends death was just a cold, cruel, accident - it could happen to anybody - it just happened to be one of the most precious creatures on the planet....

"If this is true - if there really is no rhyme or reason - if it just happened to be wrong place - wrong time - then I am not sure I can go on...
Then this whole world is pointless.... and everything is just random....
and there is no use to try to love - to try to help - to try to heal....
if this could just "happen" - then there is no karma - no wrong or right....

"I want to believe that what my insight from the universe revealed was real - that there is some sort of order to this universe - some sort of soul evolution - some sort of kind universally all-loving spirit that guides us for our highest and greatest good....
but my mind is telling me that it's just a big rationalization and that the universe just exists - it is indifferent - and doesn't really care one way or the other...
it just goes on....

"I don't know which one is real anymore...
I don't know what is real anymore...
I don't know what the point of this existence is....

"I am feeling confused, cynical and a bit schizophrenic by all of this....
any insights from this tribe will be a great help in helping me to sort this tragedy out and come to some sort of terms....
Thank you for just letting me blurt this all out..."


Re the above post:
"I want to believe that what my insight from the universe revealed was real - that there is some sort of order to this universe - some sort of soul evolution - some sort of kind universally all-loving spirit that guides us for our highest and greatest good....
but my mind is telling me that it's just a big rationalization and that the universe just exists - it is indifferent - and doesn't really care one way or the other...
it just goes on.... "


Namaste.

Okay, I will respond on a basic level. Not as a vajrayana guru in particular, but on a simple existential level, using the pop culture vernacular.

This is from Spiderman 3:
"Whatever comes our way, whatever battle. . . we always have a choice. . .
It's the choices that makes us what we are, and we can always choose to do what's right."

Soul evolution is a choice. It is a possibility that can always be engaged. We have to be bigger than our problems. We have to live for that which is most worthwhile, not throw away our human possibilities due to small or large obstacles on the way.

Life is a journey. Go forward, go up.

The Dalai Lama says "Work for peace." Sometimes you have to fight for it, too. The fight may be primarily an internal fight for higher consciousness, it may be a fight on some outer level as well. But we all do need emotional strength, so we all have to develop that, each individually.

"We can't abandon our responsibilities or the people we need to protect. This is who we are."
Jessica Alba, in "Fantastic Four"

Acarya KT, inner medical tantrika




And a second post ( part 2 )
"I don't know what the point of this existence is....

"I am feeling confused, cynical and a bit schizophrenic by all of this....
any insights from this tribe will be a great help in helping me to sort this tragedy out and come to some sort of terms....
Thank you for just letting me blurt this all out... "


The point of life is learning, and growing, and becoming more aware and responsive and able.
Major setbacks and heartaches can serve as important challenges to goad us towards greater awareness and responsibility.
In the classical Mahayana Buddhist perspective, the goal ( and the path also ) is the development of Wisdom, Compassion, and Power.
Or, as is said in Sanskrit, "Jnana Karuna Bala".
These are ennobling and liberating potentials that *natively* exist within each person, but they must be developed through classical yoga sadhana.

On a more personal level, what is clearly necessary here is personal daily journaling for some period of time, some weeks or maybe months. We are all responsible for understanding ourselves and sorting ourselves out. When we can listen to and understand our own thoughts and feelings and situations, it then becomes more possible to deal with the larger world and bigger issues.

On the specific matter of violence and victimization and personal responsiblity, I have written an article on Albert Camus, which you can find at my tribe home under the picture for Albert Camus. Camus, the great French Nobel Laureate and member of the French Underground in World War 2, said that one should be neither a victim nor an executioner.

He also said,
N'attends pas le jugement final, mon ami, par ce-que il se passe chaque journee.

That means,
Do not await the "final judgement" my friend, because it takes place every day.

So I have given answer on three levels, the dharmic, the psychological, and the existential. I do all three, obviously.

More can be said, but this establishes the basics. Beyond these points, it is necessary to do a formal practice of some kind.
Please note in this regard that poor and oppressed people who have authentic spiritual discipline can show much greater personal equilibrium and emotional stamina under severe conditions than wealthy people in free countries who lack sadhana and dharma.
Freedom is in large measure an inside job.

Live for that which is highest in yourself and others. Go for light and freedom and the truly liberating human values.

Best to all,
KT, inner medical tantrika, dagger priest and pipe carrier of the Lakota Sioux

All My Relations. Sarva mangalam!