This is a tough one muji... I think that if you speak from
Your heart you will help her no matter what you say because as I have gotten to know you through your kindness and support of others and also of yourself I have seen a heart filled with hope and compassion... I have also seen your soul as courgously hopeful for what you have survived and endured in this lifetime would brake the average man... But you have triumphed and with a dignity and grace that I believe exists because you, your soul, and your heart never gave up on the hope that there was a healthier safer place to be than where you where...!!! That my friend is beautiful...

I also know how devistating it is to loose hope... So although I agree to some Extent that we must live in the present and enjoy the moment... What happens when the moment is kickig your ass... Well then my friend, hope for a better tomorrow comes to play. For without it all would go black... I have felt the crushing weight of lost hope, and I do not wish that upon anyone...!!!

To put it in a simplistic and cheesy way...
Hope can get you through times with no money but money can't get you through times with no hope...!!!

Muji, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this subject but may not be able to express them articulately. Let me try.

I spent some time at an ashram many years ago. We all had jobs there - service was part of the ashram experience - and mine was as a cashier at the cafe. I'd been told to greet each person who came through my line with love. I was very depressed and hopeless in those days, and I went to my job with no clue as to how I could possibly fulfill that instruction. Then it occurred to me that it would be so awful if anyone else felt as terrible as I did. To make sure no one else would feel that bad, I started looking into each person's eyes as they passed, offering them love, so they couldn't feel as isolated and despairing as I did. And eventually I noticed I wasn't depressed anymore, for my heart was full of love.

The lesson that taught me is that the love that heals, that brings happiness and meaning to life, was inside me all along - I just needed the circumstances to bring it to the surface.

So maybe that nun's rejection of "hope" is about discovering that what makes life worth living - namely a profound connection to our own hearts, which in turn connects us to others' hearts and to the divine - is inherent in the present moment if could overcome the distractions and constructions thrown up by our minds. In that sense, I don't see any contradiction. Anyone who is incapable of FULLY embracing the moment - which is to say, most people, even among the Buddhist clergy - is going to keep working at it because they hope to succeed and have faith in what is waiting for them when they do. The Buddhist faith expressed by that nun may seem dry, but I know from the experience I described and a couple others I've had that when those Buddhists are able to attain what they're working for, the experience is anything but dry. And I have no doubt that we are all looking for that same rich fulfillment in BEING, even if we think it's to be found by getting a mansion or whatever else. BEING is all we have, and how we experience that is the difference between a lush garden of joy and a desert of deprivation.

I don't know if this answers what you're asking about but I felt this was relevant.

Of course I don't live in that awareness AT ALL but having had the experience I know it's in there somewhere. Only hope keeps me going - hope that I can get back there. And I guarantee that hope keeps that nun meditating too. Hope or grim determination. I prefer hope, but grim determination comes in handy too. There have been times when only my samurai readings kept me going - determined to keep going, no matter what, because it is noble to do so. But I could argue that that is a form of love - loving myself enough to make what I consider a noble effort.

Hey, y'all, it's EXACTLY the lesson I'm trying to learn by tomorrow. I'll say more later. You know exactly, exactly. Thanks so much for the help. I'm looking for that Goldilocks thing with the porridge in the story, "not too hot, not too cold, just right" only with hope, not porridge. You're helping me understand what the wise Buddhist nun was saying along with what Mitch Albom was saying. For tomorrow.

Oh, am I ever glad you're here with your experience on this....

Hi muji, I thought of an experience I had many years ago right after I moved to a large city. A church I was attending supported a large homeless shelter and needed help at Thanksgiving serving food. I was by myself, so I signed on to help. I will never in my life forget...as homeless people of all ages came thru the line....I saw in their eyes this pain/hopelessness to this day I can not describe...it brings tears to my eyes even now....it humbled me. It was not a time to smile broadly and make upbeat conversation.....I actually felt like I was not prepared....I didn't know what to say that would help ease the pain I saw. I just spoke quietly, made eye contact and I prayed that I conveyed Hope, that somehow, someway God's Love would be felt and would give those hurting so much, the strength to keep Hoping inspite of their pain.

I went home that day and just sobbed. Speaking from the heart to someone in despair...yes surviving each moment is necessary, but it is Hope that allows us to survive each moment, I think, to believe that whatever has happened, it is possible to believe it can change, improve, even in the darkest of circumstances.

I struggle with Faith, don't understand God's ways....but in my most despairing times, it is hanging on to threads of Hope, that has kept me going, even when I do not understand the *whys*

God Bless You in your journey and in the caring you have to not *do harm*...that says
alot to me, that your heart is already
leading....just my thoughts muji...Blessings!

As an amateur linguist, I seem to have noticed that a trait all languages seem to have in common is the fewer the letters in a word, the bigger the meaning. A 16 letter word like, "Deoxyribonucleic" can only mean one thing. A four letter word like, "Hope?" Me duele a la cabeza!!!! Entire religious orders and political systems have dedicated thousands of years to that single word without coming any closer to clarity. Personally, I have meditated the concept for countless hours and feel countless more to come.

Inside my personal skin, I have dedicated the most contemplation on separating my hopes from my expectations. When I find myself trying to force my desired outcome, I am not hoping. I am expecting. Expectations are, without doubt, the greatest source of heartache and destruction in my own, personal life. When my desired outcome is a gentle comfort in my heart and a compassionate guide in my actions, I am hoping.

Ask me again tomorrow and I will have a whole different take. Big subject...

And...

What does "smart" have to do with it? Hope is an emotion, not a logic.

Hope... the thought that tomorrow will be better than today... I can't see how anyone could have enough of that.

BUT there is a point when too much disappointment, too many times that hopes have been crushed, when hope dies.

As long as there is hope, there is life. Hope is what fills each moment with joy as we look forward to the next moment...

Being "smart" isn't always the most helpful thing. The human mind can build magnificent structures to protect itself from the terrifying simplicity of the truth. There's one thing a lot of geniuses have worked hard to distance themselves from - that helpless infant, pinioned by gravity, and at the mercy of gigantic, all-powerful human caretakers, which is where we all start life. Don't overestimate brains. Don't be surprised if the psychiatrist's brains couldn't save her. Healing comes from the heart. The founder of the ashram I stayed at said, "The heart is the hub of the universe: go there and roam." My guru said, "We fly with two wings: self-effort and grace." I think in a way you could say we fly with two wings: mind and heart. You won't get far with just one or the other.

Thanks, everybody. Lots of encouragement there. I have the Skype appointment tomorrow morning.

You made me reflect on the word for hope in Spanish. It's esperanza, from the verb esperar, the verb "to wait." It's less about actively projecting into the future as it is being more passively willing hang on to get there.

Wow, that is so tough. I know I lost hope this last year when it was unveiled just how awful my parenting family was and finding out some things my brother did (he should be in jail now).

Anyway, I know that feeling of your whole world being rocked to the core and thinking, "OMG, how can there be a God of hope when he/she allows THIS to happen?" I bet a lot of people on here have felt that way.

I think you can only share your experience, strength and what version of hope you have and like others said, speak from the heart. I would think she wants "the heart" version as she is a scientist. I mean, there are medical miracles in science too and seeing those types of miracles can restore some hope. I have tried to watch inspirational things to fill the "hole of hope" I have experienced over the last year. You must have a ton of stories to share Muji?? From what I've read on your posts, I get that feeling that you exude peace and hope. I bet you have been led to this person for this very reason. Just trust what you have been put on this earth to do and share your experiences.

Finally, I would just say, for me personally....when I went through a period of "no hope" when my cardiologist just a year and a half ago, told me I had NO OPTIONS. I was headed to heart failure (as I know you've experienced kidney failure also).....a month later the nurse called me and said, "you won't believe this, but there is a treatment that I believe will help you and I KNEW I had to tell you!" that is meant to be. 2 months later I could walk up a flight of stairs, talk on the phone, work again. It makes me cry thinking about it.
Be interested to hear how it turns out :))

Hmmm.

Pondered this long and hard.

Hope to me is a form of optimistic patience. I can actively do things about what I want to achieve, and hope for success---but it's a peculiar blend, for me, of emotional and spiritual activity, with physical inactivity. (Pray is another big-meaning short word that way.) I *hope* this Skype appointment will go well for you, Muji, but that is purely on my part an act of my heart/spirit; my physical self is uninvolved, since I'm nowhere near you, can do nothing about it in actual person or fact.

The fact her mother was a "scientist" and she is one is, in fact, irrelevant to her mother's *pain*, and to her own. If she wants a *rational* explanation of how to cope with something utterly *irrational*? She's in my boat, up Feces Creek with only half a paddle. I know. I hit this yesterday in talking to Hubby about my sis. I keep feeling this anguish b/c I want a *reason* for what my sis was and what my sis did--- but there's nothing like the cognitive brain involved in what my sis was and did. It lay far deeper. Primitive brain parts were shaped, twisted, by evolution and experience alike. I am confident my dad---highly intelligent---knew dam* well what he did was *bad* and *wrong*---but that didn't mean his intellect had diddly to do with his actions and reactions. He was in "reflex" mode, not "mindfulness".

I'm rambling, but the sum of it is:

We hope the way we pray. We hope the way we walk. We hope as an act of *faith*---that there is a Deity listening, that gravity will continue to work with us and not against us as we walk, that we will be able to walk tomorrow because we walked today (speaking as someone with issues)....

I choose to have hope. Because things *have* improved in the past, and so there's that experience to show that it's possible.--- and hope that it is *probable* things can continue to improve. I have to work on my issues, I can't just sit here and expect the universe to re-align in my favor--- but that's something in the physical realm, not just the heart/spirit.

So sorry to ramble on and on. It's just--- for me, hope is the opposite of dread, the way compassion is the opposite of hate. It's a way to see (or of seeing) the probabilities (quantum physics style) as being infinite, and therefore as likely or even more likely to be in my favor than not.

Yours in hope,
Leo
PS You can have too much hope, which is called 'ridiculously unrealistic presumption that the universe will re-align in your favor for the asking'--- you still have to be mindful of your place Here-Now, and see the Here-Now, or the Then-There isn't founded in hope, but in hind-brain-based *fear*. I call it the Snake-Brain Dichotomy: keep going out of blind hope, but so full of open-eyed fear. *CONSCIOUS* hope is a way to channel that for me.

I made no sense and went on forever. I'm so sorry. I SUCK at philosophical concepts and constructs. *sigh*


BLessings on your Skype app't,
Leo

Thanks, everybody. I came to gather your strength and wisdom before our Skype appointment between myself and this woman in 10 mins, the woman whose psychiatrist mom committed suicide. Looking to be a balanced presence between appreciating the tragic but offering comfort, something you all do here every day. You're the best. Gracias.

Just got off the Skype call with the young woman I've been talking about, the abuse survivor whose abuser was her mom and also a psychiatrist.

You really helped. Like all of us here, she just wanted to tell her story to one of "us" survivors who "gets" it. I trust in how when you do that, every time you repeat it to an understanding person it reduces its power to make you relive it. In her conversation, as it went on calm and positivity came.

I just told her our story from participating together here at DS PTSD. I don't know if she'll take the invitation to join us or not, that's up to her. But it was comforting to her that there was a community of survivors like her that validate stories like hers, stories of surviving abusers such as moms, psychiatrists, ministers, etc

Thanks for your support in this Skype call. Because you helped me make it that way it was an extension of what we do here every day.

This group is such a blessing to us all. I am so grateful. Thank you for spreading that blessing to one more suffering human.