Originally Posted by
Stephanie
My best to you, Ten. My mind can get pretty righteously nasty too and I know, from having been there, that so much of what people throw at you when you're asking for help can just seem so useless, so irrelevant to your condition, even infuriating and insulting because it's so far from the mark. But--I find--the fact that people are throwing something at you, are listening to you and responding to you with kindness, always means something, even if the content of their words isn't that helpful. My best advice to you would be to stick around here. I've had real trouble finding a sangha and I can tell you by far this is the sanest bunch of folks I've ever found gathering in the name of Buddhism. I only wish we could encounter one another here in the flesh.
For all of the bad teachers and deluded practitioners out there, you need other people. I don't mean you as in you and only you, but you as in everybody. Just being able to engage in dialogue, to have multiple minds working at a problem, to have other perspectives on your life situations, and just to be able to listen and share--it's important. So while you continue to look for a religion or sangha in 3-Dspace, I would say, continue to come here. John Daido Loori says that if you're intent upon being a bodhisattva whose work is to save the world, you have to be equally ready to be saved by it. There really aren't going to be any answers anyone can give you that will give you what you're looking for. But the action of asking them, of being willing to open yourself to others and to search and to ask, that what begins to change you, to save you.