We all of us have terrible dark alleys and urban dead zones in our minds, Arfie. Peace upon you.

Sometimes, the mystery is not meant to be understood. Yet. WHen we are ready, as a species, perhaps?

Gentle support.

I like the Zen proverb you wrote, still I understand the "How can God allow such evil". I think about that too and how did some of us get so screwed up that we can hurt children and others so badly.

I guess the abusers are victims too but are wired differently. I once read of a study that psychopaths when attached to EEG's and they viewed other people in pain on video's; they had their pleasure centres activated in their brain. Normal people have their pain centres of their brain activated when viewing others in pain. It made me think that they are just doing what makes them feel good, abusing others is normal for them. That is their survival. The researchers were hoping they could remap their brain somehow. Perhaps in the future.

You deserve to feel safe and you are just as important and wonderful as another human. Hang in there

Thank you, Leo. Often I think I understand the infinite mysteries of life when I am not trying to put them into words. I really believe that Dog is the language I can best speak them with. Drives my shrinks crazier... Tail wagging hopefully.

I, personally, still haven't submitted to an EEG, Musk. My "abusers" haven't even gotten as far as, "The Shrink Wrapping." Think I'll just let that mystery be, at least for now. Thanks for the support.

Big hug for you arfie... I have spent so much time and effort trying to read the mind of God... How bloody arrogant is that
I'm glad that you don't want to travel alone on a dark and frightening path...xo

I go through that too it becomes an obsession to figure it all out for (I have OCD intrusive thoughts)....

Yes some of it can be traced back and psychoanalyzed to a certain point.... But the question of "God allowing this evil?".....

Maybe is better for me to speculate there is no God....Because that is the 5 trillion dollar question...

But if there was a God maybe God is part of us and it does not have the power to stop it..God is the good in us...

In my little fantasy world, there is the most beautiful mountain you can imagine. And at the foot of that mountain is the largest toxic waste dump in the world. This is the place that I can crate up all of the hurts and pain in my life that have come about at the hands of others. I can take my time and gather everything up and prepare it for shipment to the toxic waste dump. Then I can arrange for an air carrier to pick it up and deliver it to the dump.

There will be things that I forget and will need to be prepared for shipment to the dump as they make themselves known.

Is there such a place?

Have I done this myself?

Arfie I really enjoy thee thread even if they are the result of anguish they are thought provoking.

"If I do not understand it, it is what it is. If I do understand it, it is what it is.
Your zen proverb is a good start. But that needs an extension.
If I do understand it and I know it is what its, do I have to continue the cycle? or learn to circumvent the process.

Understanding history gives us the opportunity to alter the future path we choose. I see it in many of the peoples here as they work through action and reaction models to define the source, the challenge the behaviors learned to change their outcome. It is a personal fight for everyone and to each his own route to accomplish. But doing nothing will guarantee a repetition of the same. The old " doing the same thing equals the same result.

I strongly believe we as a community have the cumulative examples of the best and the worst of outcomes and everything in between. I didn't think this understanding was possible 2 years ago for me.
It hurts me to face the reasons in study which at this point are still bland to my experiences and for some here wouldn't even jiggle the needle on the Richter scale. But I also get to explore examples of ways to short circuit that hard-wiring.
I am still reactive on a very high level to my stresses and what the stress may have a string tied to in my past. But as soon as I realize that it's a past twang making it seem so huge, then I can start the internal discussion to separate the two. ( in most cases.)
My hard-wiring is strong, a life force that started in infancy though my life in many ways, so I don't expect it to all get done. But what I can do is take small steps to recognize the relationship that is being reactive and work on quelling it, put in jump wires to bypass the bad ones. This takes the knowledge of what I have to work with and what I want to short circuit. Building my tool box big to put in anything new that I can use now or later.

You and many here are the source of a lot of my newest tools in these last couple years.
Miigwetch for what and how you explain your feelings and resolutions. Even that sometimes the only thing to do with a hot potato is to set it down, visit it later when the reaction is not so strong
Jewell

My beloved best friend since we were roommates in 1977 is a PhD research scientist at a major university. He is internationally renowned at scientific conferences overseas in Switzerland and Brazil. I have seen him in action as guest speaker expert scientist at one of those overseas conferences. Other scientists literally hang on every word he says.

Not a dumb guy. But he has a wonderfully folksy Zen statement whenever he can't answer the Great Metaphysical Questions of the Universe you list. Why is there evil? etc.

He just says, "I dunno. Just dumb, I guess." And he shrugs and schleps onward with you through the hot, steaming cow pies ahead. He has never failed to stick by me in all of the incredibly bad moments of this absurd life I've lived somehow.

That stood me in good stead, believe it or not, when I was humbled as a hospital chaplain at 3 a.m. next to a person in a bed who is in the middle of an unspeakably unfair tragedy. It must not be said in dismissive disrespect, but with heartfelt humility in that darkest hour. You get to say it if you hang in there in all of your admitted ignorance.

Then it can be a heck of a bold Zen statement of going on when we are in that area of life beyond answers.

Letting go of my conditioned need to judge might -just maybe- have been the greatest benefit of my therapy work. My highly dysfunctional clan had a harsh, well-volleyed judgments for every THEY in the human spectrum, all the way from nature traits to nameless, faceless strangers in the newspaper to whatever family members were not present to defend themselves, etcetera, etceteri. 2 adults and 11 children plus a revolving cast of peripherals could volley a newborn kitten into a rabid puma with hysterical ease. (No offense intended, Leo. Just a tease.)

I was led by more experienced souls in the healing journey to begin kicking the judgement habit with the harsh judgments I continually heaped upon myself and my illness. As my healing progressed, a pattern emerged: I was passing negative judgments on great strengths and profound beauty. I simply (ha!) needed to learn how to use my nature well. Training counts.

I see the world as I am, not as it really is. Once I leaned this about myself, it rippled outward with natural ease.

And optimism had room to grow. . . Healing hopes. . .