nobody_

04:32 pm - Psychologically healthy Buddhists...

...do they exist?



I used to think that when I went into Buddhist communities, I would encounter relatively "enlightened" people: like average people, except only a little wiser and more mindful. My actual experience of sangha, in person and online, is that Buddhist groups are magnets for especially maladjusted and lost people. The passage of time and accumulation of experience interacting with multiple sanghas has only confirmed this further.



I'm not saying this universally applies to anyone interested in a Buddhist group, but it seems on average, there's more psychological disturbance and even lower levels of average, street-level clarity manifested in the conversations I've had with various "Buddhists" than with random folks in other settings and on the street. This has been quite discouraging, and has stirred up a lot of skepticism on my part about Buddhism and the claims made by its practitioners.



On top of various degrees of dissociative, thought-disordered, and delusional behavior, I've also seen an exceptionally common trend of emotional maladjustment. What makes this even more of a concern is that it seems that a lot of people (from people who've just read a few books to actual teachers) have used Buddhist rhetoric to justify their emotionally unhealthy ways of being. People with deep-seated traumas and a lot of painful emotions who have learned to dissociate or repress as a coping mechanism find cosmic justification for these practices in Buddhism.



And I'm not making these observations from on high--I've been, and probably still am, to some extent, one of those people. I've just recently begun to see how many of the things I thought and did that I thought were "spiritual" or "wise" were really just psychologically disordered behavior. Now that I'm finally seeing and dealing with a lot of psychological and emotional stuff in new and healthy ways, seeing my own emotions as valid and finding relief from deep-seated neuroses through working with them, I'm starting to see the pathological ways I've used Buddhism to perpetuate dysfunctional patterns of thinking and behavior.



I'm not saying that I haven't benefited from Buddhism or that I don't believe that it's of great value as a religious tradition. I have benefited from it deeply, in ways I don't think I could have from anything else. I am so grateful I have encountered the Dharma and practiced the path. But I now see that it's not the end-all, be-all. A lot of people who go on about enlightenment are obviously not even functioning well on an average day-to-day level psychologically. I think there's a lot of self- and group delusion that goes on in Buddhist circles. And it can go very deep. It's shocking, and sad, the way people use religion to hurt themselves and other people, and in ways in which they often don't even realize what they're doing.



If you don't have respect and compassion for yourself, you will never be able to truly feel or manifest those things for others. And that doesn't require reifying your ego. Nor does it mean being selfish or self-centered. It means looking to your emotions as something worth exploring, worth addressing and healing, rather than seeing them as something you can surgically extract with enough meditation or "insight." Ultimately, emotions may be empty, but that doesn't mean that when you can realize and see this that they disappear. If you haven't dealt with your own emotional "stuff," you will continue to act it out, no matter how spiritually "enlightened" you might otherwise be or become. If you need proof of this, just look to all of the brilliant teachers who have led incredibly dysfunctional lives. Don't deny yourself kindness because it seems to be the more enlightened thing to do. That's just bullshit.



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From: worldmage Date: October 25th, 2007 09:14 pm (UTC) Psychologically Healthy Non-Buddhists... (Link) ...do they exist?



Seriously, these problems exist in any religion you care to look at; atheists and agnostics aren't all completely sane either, for that matter. People are fucked up, no matter what groups they happen to belong to. If you expect otherwise you will never cease to be disappointed. Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 09:30 pm (UTC) Re: Psychologically Healthy Non-Buddhists... (Link) Seriously, these problems exist in any religion you care to look at



Well, of course. Certainly, my expectations early on were unrealistic and idealized. But what I found over time wasn't that the people I was encountering had a "normal" level of dysfunction, but a higher level of dysfunction than that I have encountered with others outside of the Buddhist milieu. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: greatfenris Date: October 25th, 2007 09:21 pm (UTC) (Link) Hmm, I'd say your right, when talking about communities, since there is an overhead name to them, which doesn't mean that they have to be a specific way. So, you might have a buddhist community, with a lot of "broken" people in it, doesn't mean it has to do with buddhism itself, it has to do woth the people there. Everything that goes in a spiritual, an esoteric way, even if just some way of specific psychological practice, has the potential to attract those in need for it.



As for buddhism itself, I see it perfectly matching with a lot of psychological facts about a better inner working. It all depends on the perception and the use of it. Some of the things you say, a seeing and dealing with things in a proper way, are as buddhistic as it gets, at least for me they are.



I for myself, have met so many disfunction in so many occasions and in some many places, that I've come to the conclusion, that disfuntion is the norm, whereas everything else is something you have to work for really hard. Some donÄt try at all, which is cool, and some you might find at a buddhist group. :-) Bottom line, you'll find it everywhere, maybe you expect it otherwise from some people, which is a big mistake, at least in my experience.



Take care!

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From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 09:34 pm (UTC) (Link) You make a lot of excellent points. And to be clear, I don't see the people that have struck me as more dysfunctional than average as "broken." Like you, I can see how such people could benefit from the practice, and sincerely hope that they do. What worries me is that the opposite might be true--that the messages they're getting and what they're doing is reinforcing and deepening these issues, rather than alleviating them. That certainly happened with me to some extent. Buddhist practice helped me in a lot of ways, but it also reinforced some of my most harmful dysfunctions. Of course, it's easy to say, "That's because of you, not the teaching," but my point is not to vilify Buddhist teaching, but to say that if Buddhist communities attract such vulnerable individuals, that this can happen should be a concern for all of us. We need to take care of ourselves and each other first before we worry about a whole bunch of esoteric crap that's ultimately meaningless. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: phaenix_ash Date: October 25th, 2007 09:38 pm (UTC) (Link) for the record, the states of dissociation and meditation are very distinctly different.



are you certain you're not reading social awkwardness or simple shyness as dysfunction? Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 09:46 pm (UTC) (Link) I wish my memory was clear enough that I could recall a specific conversation so I could put something concrete out there, but I can't. But I definitely wouldn't just say it was shyness or social awkwardness. There's a difference between stumbling over one's words and speaking and acting in ways that are jarring and unsettling. I get in a lot of random conversations around Brooklyn and Manhattan, and work with people that are diagnosed with mental illness, and I feel completely at ease in these various situations and with these people, whereas I continue to get a completely creeped out and uncomfortable feeling in the spiritual settings I seek out on my own. To be fair, in these settings, I've also connected with people who haven't struck me in this way, but they've actually been the exception. I wish I could explain it better, but my current ideas about why this might be are someone cynical thoughts about religion in general. Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: cherydactyl Date: October 25th, 2007 09:51 pm (UTC) (Link) I think some of this is an effect of the people who know don't or won't say and those who say stuff don't know. That is, those of use active here and in many other communities online are here specifically because we are seeking, not because we have answers or are enlightened. I also think that's especially true for most western, not-raised-Buddhist Buddhists, who I suspect are over-represented in online communities such as this one. I, for one, have made a change from the religion in which I was raised because I think there was a problem and it didn't work (for me or in general...whichever). That is, converted Buddhists are more likely to be dissatisfied with their early lives, the doctrines they were raised with, or their previous ways of living. Therefore they are more likely to have substantial challenges to their psychological or emotional health from those past experiences. It's therefore largely a phenomenon of self-selection in my opinion. YMMV. Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 26th, 2007 12:04 am (UTC) (Link) Good observations. I certainly wouldn't expect to see the same dynamic in a Buddhist community where being Buddhist was just a matter of cultural transmission on a larger scale. Even though Buddhism continues to become more mainstream in the States, it's still largely a religion that draws people in a very idiosyncratic way. Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: spyro_prime Date: October 25th, 2007 09:51 pm (UTC) (Link) they have the zen master stick out on me...after only one thread...it was kind of funny actually..:) Reply ) ( Thread

From: habibekindheart Date: October 25th, 2007 10:02 pm (UTC) (Link) You make interesting points.



I know I turned to Buddhism after a particularly traumatic period in my life that affected me greatly.



I will say, though, that it has helped me to overcome those things in ways that nothing else could, and it has bettered my life. I think any religion I actually believed in would have...but I didn't choose to believe in Buddhism. It found me.



Fortunately, I know Buddhists who are well adjusted, as well as those who are not :) Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 11:29 pm (UTC) (Link) To be fair, I'm probably exaggerating the matter a bit for the sake of stirring up some good conversation here. And I'm taking a certain perspective in this post, and one could easily look at it in another way: traumatic experiences "open us up" and point to the essentially empty nature of the mind, and that plus the way the equanimity of meditation can help with the immediate pain of particular emotions, make Buddhism a natural draw for people who are wounded and struggling. I know that I've benefited the most, and that my practice has deepened the most, in the most difficult periods in my life.



And to be clear, I'm not trying to stigmatize people struggling with emotional and psychological difficulty. It's more just a concern of mine that "What if this Buddhist stuff is making some people suffer more?" It's a complex issue for me, because I can see ways that my engagement with Buddhism both hurt and helped me. But the good ultimately outweighed the bad, so maybe it's not worth worrying about too much. I don't know. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 11:51 pm (UTC) (Link) Good question, and we could get all esoteric about how it's just an empty concept, but I think it's really pretty simple. The ideal of psychological health would be to have a pretty steady level of contentment and low level of anxiety, to be able to communicate effectively with others, and to be able to have rewarding relationships that support and soothe more than they hurt. Also, to have resolved past trauma so that it does not dominate your daily thinking and behavior patterns. That's an ideal, but even so, what I'm realizing now is that it's actually possible to move toward that, and it can be even more rewarding than "spiritual stuff." Of course, it's false to set up a distinction between the two, but yet I've seen it done a lot in "spiritual circles." Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: daphnep Date: October 25th, 2007 10:56 pm (UTC) (Link) I'm wondering which groups of people (religious or otherwise) you've encountered you feel are most "psychologically healthy", when you start to look at them like that.



Seems like I meet so many dysfunctional people, the Buddhists are a breath of fresh air in comparison. But it's all a question of context, isn't it? Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 11:54 pm (UTC) (Link) I wouldn't say I've found one group that is the most psychologically healthy. It's just that I've noticed this trend toward the opposite end of the spectrum in spiritual communities. Which makes me wonder about religion sometimes. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 26th, 2007 12:12 am (UTC) (Link) I've never personally seen anyone use Buddhism for what I considered a justification for dysfunction



An example would be someone with feelings of self-loathing using Buddhist teachings to further enforce the belief that doing anything for him or herself or thinking about his or her own needs was "unenlightened" and "unskillful," and thus continuing to persist in dysfunctional relationships. Another example would be someone with painful emotions using various meditation practices to dissociate from those emotions, rather than look at them any more deeply or try to work through them. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: owl_clan Date: October 25th, 2007 11:23 pm (UTC) (Link)

Praise the Great Ones! Welcome to the Playground, Stephanie! Now maybe we can stop bickering about dumb things and join forces as Fate intended. Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 25th, 2007 11:57 pm (UTC) (Link) Who says we haven't already joined forces anyway? ;)



And I thought we were both on the same page of liking to bicker about dumb things ;)



Though I think you actually might be disappointed with my current spiritual direction. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: turil Date: October 26th, 2007 12:08 am (UTC) (Link) I have a theory (ok it's made up mostly of other people's theories, but I call it mine, too) that you need both intellectual AND emotional health to be mentally healthy. Buddhism the philosophy can help you be more intellectually healthy by helping you think in healthier ways. And Buddhism the practice (meditation, focusing, mindfulness, etc.) can help you with the emotional health stuff, by letting you literally feel different states, and giving you some control over them.



But all this takes time, especially for those of us who grew up in a particularly unhealthy environment, and picked up lots of intellectually and emotionally unhealthy habits. So those who are drawn to the healing aspects of Buddhism, are going to have to spend a lot of time in the Buddhist community before they learn healthier thinking and feeling.



And really, why else would you be drawn into Buddhism if not for the healing aspects? Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 26th, 2007 12:27 am (UTC) (Link) Good points. I think that most people drawn to it are probably looking for some form of healing, but I think that many of us don't realize it at the time. I know I identified my interest in it early on more as an intellectual pursuit, and didn't really see myself being motivated by my own suffering.



I guess the point I was trying to make is just that I hope that Buddhism is promoting healing, and not further retrenching those bad habits. Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: oboegoddess Date: October 26th, 2007 12:25 am (UTC) (Link) I don't personally know a lot of Buddhists or have much experience in a Buddhist community, but the Buddhist who I think I've been closest to in my life was the therapist I saw when I was in high school. She didn't push religion on me or anything, but her counseling obviously came from her Buddhist perspective, and to this date she is the only counselor that I feel has significantly helped me work through the problems I was having at the time (other counselors helped some, but not really that much). I remember her as being so centered and peaceful and really having this calming and loving aura about her, while also being very down to earth and funny. I know this is only one person, but I saw her as being the most psychologically healthy person I knew (at least from what I experienced being around her).



I think it's natural that people who are suffering or at low points in their lives tend to seek out something "higher" spiritually. Personally, I have been most drawn to Buddhism during difficult times, and it has definitely had a positive impact on my life and made me have more compassion toward myself and the world. I have resisted labeling myself as any religion because I firmly believe in finding my own path, so I never felt the need to "sacrifice" for the cause. However, I certainly have adhered to beliefs in my life that were ultimately harmful to myself or others, so I can see how people might warp the meanings of Buddhist teachings and cause themselves further suffering.



But honestly, if Buddhism wasn't there I'm sure people would latch onto some other cause or religion until they are truly ready to face themselves. As long as we are living in this world, there are going to be opportunities to cling to things in unhealthy ways in an attempt to escape our suffering, and I think people just have to eventually become aware of this for themselves when they are ready. Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 26th, 2007 12:43 am (UTC) (Link) That's a wonderful story re: your counselor. I would like to be like that some day :)



You make a lot of good points as well. I'm glad I followed my whim and posted this, because the comments and discussion have been really interesting and informative. I definitely am thinking now about different ways of looking at what I've been seeing, and these new perspectives are more positive than the one I had previously. I was seeing the context as an agent of the dysfunction, rather than thinking of it as an agent of healing and just that I've been encountering some folks who are more in the early stages of it... like I was at one point :) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: seer0000 Date: October 26th, 2007 12:25 am (UTC) you're just attractive (Link) being attractive tends to attract



:) Reply ) ( Thread

From: nobody_ Date: October 26th, 2007 12:54 am (UTC) Re: you're just attractive (Link) Whatever vibes I send out that draw such people to me, I hope I can find ways to use this to be of service to them. It's just frustrating sometimes when I'm looking to build my own support network and the people I keep meeting are even less stable and grounded than I am. As it is, I just end up feeling lost in a sea of lost-ness a lot of the time. Maybe it's just a cosmic joke, but it's got a bit of a bitter punchline. Expand) Reply ) ( Parent ) ( Thread

From: iconox Date: October 26th, 2007 02:57 am (UTC) (Link) People who are "psychologically unhealthy" cannot find comfort and confirmation in the mainstream, "normal" delusions that sustain most. Therefore, they're more likely to be seeking for a remedy. Reply ) ( Thread