I relate to your conclusion: "...sometimes, the invitation to self-betray is coded so deeply into our upbringing that it takes decades to find, see, and expose it for what it is." The healing is in that exposure and reframing and feeling the not-fully-felt-at-the time feelings. You are rightly accountable for your actions and generous in your assessment of his motives...but from the outside, I must say that I cannot see that a man in such a position (much older than you, with important spiritual status) could have any justification asking you to do what he did. But it is your story to process and understand. Thanks for sharing, Tessa.
Sorry about that rejection from a so called enlightened person who actually was a child.
I read a book way back called Darkness in Tibet that described the cult of that culture. It's ironic that the Buddha taught the opposite of what they follow in Tibet.
They follow the idea that the supreme Dalai comes back, reborn into this position of power. It's not the Buddhism that I've learned. It's a cult in ways and the book described how not just the top, but the middle men gurus of that following were also parasitic as they would go to villages and live well on what the working class of Tibet would offer them.
It seems that the idea of reincarnation with class status (like with the Indian caste system) is closely linked to slaves and masters. That's definitely not what the Buddha taught, and I'm not even a Buddhist!
It's not unlike how Christians ignore what Jesus taught in favor of hero worship.
Sorry for that situation but I'm glad you saw that masters are really just human beings pretending to be enlightened.
If he was truly enlightened he would either not have needed you to touch him or he would have done it but moved on without rejecting you. He rejected you because like any crazy focus on study, it leads to obsessed people who have no real understanding of the basis of their belief system.
Thank you, Rob! I wholeheartedly agree with the last paragraph!!!
From my experience of being in Tibet, the people really love the Dalai Lama, there is a lot of love in their Buddhist practice, it is not a cult in a dark sense, it is more love. That said, politics is politics. Personally, a part of me mourns the forced conversion of the Tibetan people to Buddhism in the seventh century, it was a political thing, was a bloodbath to the best of my knowledge, and I have a feeling for that culture, I resent the forced conversion to Buddhism, something about it makes me mad.
I think most women could probably tell a similar story. I could! As females we're trained to be subservient, and since men mostly control the world, in the beginning it's hard for us to stand up for ourselves. Our innocent naivete can be sweet-talked into doing things our more mature selves would never do. Men take advantage of women all the time--men who are so-called spiritually advanced, and men in positions of great power, both of whom *should* conduct themselves with propriety befitting their status, but in the end, they're just men with desires which may be entirely selfish. My brother said something interesting years ago. He said, when a woman has sex with a man, she often thinks about him for days and wonders when he'll call again. When a man has sex with a woman, it's possible he may never think about her again.
Bronze Age women were far from subservient. Scythian/Amazonian female warriors hunted men from horseback and used them as needed for procreation and occasional meals (yes, ate them). They were accomplished archers who used poisoned arrows to deal with the enemy and wore poison in their hair (think Medusa). Aphrodite and the Earth Mother and the Oracles ruled all of the religions centered around the Mediterranean "world". It was the rise of monism (2nd - 3rd century BCE) that gave rise to the misogyny and male-centric social constructs that we have in the West today - courtesy of organized judaism, christianity, and islam (very successful control mechanism over the peasantry).
Sadly, I have read studies that 70-80% of women are sexually abused in some manner today. "Only" about 50-60% of men seem to be treated similarly. Men do not get a free pass in this department. I work with trauma survivors and have heard heart-rending tales of abuse from both sexes. My own son was driven to suicide by abuse, so I empathize with the traumatized.
Humankind must throw off the tyranny of organized religion and psychopathic rulers or our species will come to an unhappy end as we find our bones joining those of the Dodo and T. Rex.
Not sure how that will ever happen, but there is an awakening underway...
Re: "I am responsible for respecting myself." My dear Tessa, I believe that this is one of the most important lessons in human life. Many people never learn it. I do not doubt that you will have helped someone with your story.
PS This is the lens through which I viewed the whole, shall we say, Cooties Juice Affair 2020-present. I could see how it weaponized compassion in a very evil way. And your writings have been an important part of the resistance-- which is to say, the call for respect for human dignity.
Most of my "mistakes" are in their 50s and even 60s by now.
Whew!
:-}
I still wish all of the people I have wronged well, and I have thought of my own wrong actions occasionally when I have been wronged.
It took me awhile to figure out that everything I had been taught, and knew to be true, was absolutely and always true, and the short-cuts were all booby-traps.
what a great share and goes to the top of the kleshas - avidya, meaning not seeing what is true as true and seeing what is not true as true.
yes, as you know, i recently have been working my way through a similar process of my own blindness. yours was to the degree your true value had been subsumed beneath the devaluation of the human female. and, curiously or interestingly enough, mine was the similar energy although of my devaluation as a human male. we live in a culture that devalues both sexes! it is possible that to some extent the libidinous monk was also struggling with his own lack of value for himself.
yes, a totally schismogenetic world-culture that seems to have been successfuly promulgated by most (all?) 'proper' formal religions. I will continue to explore how formal religion is the creator and propagandist of morality and morality is perhaps the strongest of the schismogenetic tools.
great big hug to you and welcome to the seeing a bit more clearly what is who we are.
all the best with what is changing. everything changes!
I am in some ways a typical female. However at a deeper level, I dont think gender matters per se - it's part of the 'skin' we choose to incarnate in, and sometimes we come to this planet as men, sometimes women. Our soul goes on. Im going to tell you about my own bad behaviour as a female. When I was at uni I twice "accidentally" got into a situation where I "allowed"/ "encouraged" a guy to pleasure me manually (I say accidentally because in one case the guy offered to give me a back massage and after a while he got a bit near to my crown jewels) - the other was accidental only in that I didnt see it coming - it happened sort of spontaneously. In both cases neither guy was a close friend, but equally neither was a stanger and I would see them every day in college. Once it was over, I did not reciprocate, ran off and afterwards pretended it had never happened. I felt ashamed that I had let them continue because the physical pleasure took over, but in both cases I didnt want a relationship with them. I dont think they were heartbroken though, because they werent looking for a relationship as such - if I had allowed it I think they would have liked a relationship. But instead they just had a steamy but unfulfilling moment with a selfish uncontolled girl. Im telling you this because so many of the comments are about women getting hurt by men. Sometimes women behave badly too - I dont think the men hurt as much, but women can use their beauty as a power too...
I have seen people who are friends, that become more than friends, and also friends that venture past friendship and then become distant because they were better as friends. The mutual part is very tricky because we are all so unique.
It is unfortunate that he put that pressure on you. Possibly disconnected out of shame rather than preplanned purpose to use you. He must have been attracted to you as more than just a friend. Either way I'm sorry this memory happened and haunts you, but glad you are dealing with it.
Twelve years ago I was asked, what superpower would you have if you could have one. I said the ability to say no without hurting feelings.
Well time has passed and I need to come up with a different answer because I've achieved this.
I recognize we are each entitled to our eternal circle of grace, including myself. That is, the boundaries we need to help ourselves feel safe and secure.
We can either take our experiences and stay bitter or realize the imperfections of life and people, that we are who we are in that moment of time and learn from our experiences as we reflect back on them.
Now you know what you did not before from life experience and thoughtful of you to share your experience that perhaps others may learn too. These experiences will help guide you from this point on just like others.
Another book that is so important ... David Augsburger, Caring Enough to Forgive, Caring Enough Not to Forgive; True Forgiveness, False Forgiveness
the time BUDDHA and i last spoke....i think he said......."life is hard, it's a swirly mess, everyone is confused.....understand that first....then maybe METTA comes!. and then he said "to be of Buddha nature you must learn to scratch your own balls....."'
Oh my goodness! How brave and generous of you to share such a personal moment, intense inner reflection, and your later-realized perspective. Thank you! I am sure that your statement "The self-sacrifice of women at the hands of broken boys is coded into my culture so deeply that I didn't even see what I was doing..." will resonate with many people!
I relate to your conclusion: "...sometimes, the invitation to self-betray is coded so deeply into our upbringing that it takes decades to find, see, and expose it for what it is." The healing is in that exposure and reframing and feeling the not-fully-felt-at-the time feelings. You are rightly accountable for your actions and generous in your assessment of his motives...but from the outside, I must say that I cannot see that a man in such a position (much older than you, with important spiritual status) could have any justification asking you to do what he did. But it is your story to process and understand. Thanks for sharing, Tessa.
Sorry about that rejection from a so called enlightened person who actually was a child.
I read a book way back called Darkness in Tibet that described the cult of that culture. It's ironic that the Buddha taught the opposite of what they follow in Tibet.
They follow the idea that the supreme Dalai comes back, reborn into this position of power. It's not the Buddhism that I've learned. It's a cult in ways and the book described how not just the top, but the middle men gurus of that following were also parasitic as they would go to villages and live well on what the working class of Tibet would offer them.
It seems that the idea of reincarnation with class status (like with the Indian caste system) is closely linked to slaves and masters. That's definitely not what the Buddha taught, and I'm not even a Buddhist!
It's not unlike how Christians ignore what Jesus taught in favor of hero worship.
Sorry for that situation but I'm glad you saw that masters are really just human beings pretending to be enlightened.
If he was truly enlightened he would either not have needed you to touch him or he would have done it but moved on without rejecting you. He rejected you because like any crazy focus on study, it leads to obsessed people who have no real understanding of the basis of their belief system.
Thank you, Rob! I wholeheartedly agree with the last paragraph!!!
From my experience of being in Tibet, the people really love the Dalai Lama, there is a lot of love in their Buddhist practice, it is not a cult in a dark sense, it is more love. That said, politics is politics. Personally, a part of me mourns the forced conversion of the Tibetan people to Buddhism in the seventh century, it was a political thing, was a bloodbath to the best of my knowledge, and I have a feeling for that culture, I resent the forced conversion to Buddhism, something about it makes me mad.
I think most women could probably tell a similar story. I could! As females we're trained to be subservient, and since men mostly control the world, in the beginning it's hard for us to stand up for ourselves. Our innocent naivete can be sweet-talked into doing things our more mature selves would never do. Men take advantage of women all the time--men who are so-called spiritually advanced, and men in positions of great power, both of whom *should* conduct themselves with propriety befitting their status, but in the end, they're just men with desires which may be entirely selfish. My brother said something interesting years ago. He said, when a woman has sex with a man, she often thinks about him for days and wonders when he'll call again. When a man has sex with a woman, it's possible he may never think about her again.
Bronze Age women were far from subservient. Scythian/Amazonian female warriors hunted men from horseback and used them as needed for procreation and occasional meals (yes, ate them). They were accomplished archers who used poisoned arrows to deal with the enemy and wore poison in their hair (think Medusa). Aphrodite and the Earth Mother and the Oracles ruled all of the religions centered around the Mediterranean "world". It was the rise of monism (2nd - 3rd century BCE) that gave rise to the misogyny and male-centric social constructs that we have in the West today - courtesy of organized judaism, christianity, and islam (very successful control mechanism over the peasantry).
Sadly, I have read studies that 70-80% of women are sexually abused in some manner today. "Only" about 50-60% of men seem to be treated similarly. Men do not get a free pass in this department. I work with trauma survivors and have heard heart-rending tales of abuse from both sexes. My own son was driven to suicide by abuse, so I empathize with the traumatized.
Humankind must throw off the tyranny of organized religion and psychopathic rulers or our species will come to an unhappy end as we find our bones joining those of the Dodo and T. Rex.
Not sure how that will ever happen, but there is an awakening underway...
Apparently, you are getting stronger and smarter, and are able to see things correctly now. Brava.
Thank you!!
Re: "I am responsible for respecting myself." My dear Tessa, I believe that this is one of the most important lessons in human life. Many people never learn it. I do not doubt that you will have helped someone with your story.
PS This is the lens through which I viewed the whole, shall we say, Cooties Juice Affair 2020-present. I could see how it weaponized compassion in a very evil way. And your writings have been an important part of the resistance-- which is to say, the call for respect for human dignity.
🎯🎯🎯1000%
Thank you so much, Transcriber B!! And I agree!
It is wonderful when we bring things out of the dark and into the light. Beautiful.
I'm sorry, Tessa.
;-(
Most of my "mistakes" are in their 50s and even 60s by now.
Whew!
:-}
I still wish all of the people I have wronged well, and I have thought of my own wrong actions occasionally when I have been wronged.
It took me awhile to figure out that everything I had been taught, and knew to be true, was absolutely and always true, and the short-cuts were all booby-traps.
;-/
Thank you, Brother John!! Shortcuts tend to be traps, I agree with you!!
This reminds me of Hermann Hess’ Siddartha - a tale of a supposedly spiritual person who however was completely self possessed.
The much revered book of my teen years!! :)
hola, tessa.
what a great share and goes to the top of the kleshas - avidya, meaning not seeing what is true as true and seeing what is not true as true.
yes, as you know, i recently have been working my way through a similar process of my own blindness. yours was to the degree your true value had been subsumed beneath the devaluation of the human female. and, curiously or interestingly enough, mine was the similar energy although of my devaluation as a human male. we live in a culture that devalues both sexes! it is possible that to some extent the libidinous monk was also struggling with his own lack of value for himself.
yes, a totally schismogenetic world-culture that seems to have been successfuly promulgated by most (all?) 'proper' formal religions. I will continue to explore how formal religion is the creator and propagandist of morality and morality is perhaps the strongest of the schismogenetic tools.
great big hug to you and welcome to the seeing a bit more clearly what is who we are.
all the best with what is changing. everything changes!
Big hug to you as well, Guy, and like I said in an earlier comment, thank you for sharing your gifts with the world, the world is better from it!! xo
👍🙏❤️🧘♂️❤️🙏👍
I am in some ways a typical female. However at a deeper level, I dont think gender matters per se - it's part of the 'skin' we choose to incarnate in, and sometimes we come to this planet as men, sometimes women. Our soul goes on. Im going to tell you about my own bad behaviour as a female. When I was at uni I twice "accidentally" got into a situation where I "allowed"/ "encouraged" a guy to pleasure me manually (I say accidentally because in one case the guy offered to give me a back massage and after a while he got a bit near to my crown jewels) - the other was accidental only in that I didnt see it coming - it happened sort of spontaneously. In both cases neither guy was a close friend, but equally neither was a stanger and I would see them every day in college. Once it was over, I did not reciprocate, ran off and afterwards pretended it had never happened. I felt ashamed that I had let them continue because the physical pleasure took over, but in both cases I didnt want a relationship with them. I dont think they were heartbroken though, because they werent looking for a relationship as such - if I had allowed it I think they would have liked a relationship. But instead they just had a steamy but unfulfilling moment with a selfish uncontolled girl. Im telling you this because so many of the comments are about women getting hurt by men. Sometimes women behave badly too - I dont think the men hurt as much, but women can use their beauty as a power too...
Hugs
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis comes to mind.
I have seen people who are friends, that become more than friends, and also friends that venture past friendship and then become distant because they were better as friends. The mutual part is very tricky because we are all so unique.
It is unfortunate that he put that pressure on you. Possibly disconnected out of shame rather than preplanned purpose to use you. He must have been attracted to you as more than just a friend. Either way I'm sorry this memory happened and haunts you, but glad you are dealing with it.
Twelve years ago I was asked, what superpower would you have if you could have one. I said the ability to say no without hurting feelings.
Well time has passed and I need to come up with a different answer because I've achieved this.
I recognize we are each entitled to our eternal circle of grace, including myself. That is, the boundaries we need to help ourselves feel safe and secure.
We can either take our experiences and stay bitter or realize the imperfections of life and people, that we are who we are in that moment of time and learn from our experiences as we reflect back on them.
Now you know what you did not before from life experience and thoughtful of you to share your experience that perhaps others may learn too. These experiences will help guide you from this point on just like others.
Another book that is so important ... David Augsburger, Caring Enough to Forgive, Caring Enough Not to Forgive; True Forgiveness, False Forgiveness
Life changing
Wow! That is a killer memory. You were a kid. You saw his side of the story.
I do think some cultures - maybe most - see women as secondary.
We certainly are seeing these elements now.
Maybe we have to see people rather than getting seduced by culture, anyway.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share that memory.
Amen to that
the time BUDDHA and i last spoke....i think he said......."life is hard, it's a swirly mess, everyone is confused.....understand that first....then maybe METTA comes!. and then he said "to be of Buddha nature you must learn to scratch your own balls....."'
Brave lady. Being used is not easy to see sometimes and it does crush our soul. Seeing it is hard painful work. Worth it
Thank you!
Oh my goodness! How brave and generous of you to share such a personal moment, intense inner reflection, and your later-realized perspective. Thank you! I am sure that your statement "The self-sacrifice of women at the hands of broken boys is coded into my culture so deeply that I didn't even see what I was doing..." will resonate with many people!
Thank you so much, Pamela!