Thanks Corboy, you raise a very important point.
The thing is, I don't hold "rinpochehelpedme" at fault there.
It is rather further evidence of the way Peter Young does not teach compassion.
Peter Young's need to inflict aggression and violence alongside his "care" is very clear from her description.
"but it's not abusive as far as I remember. I've had him shouting down the phone at me before where I was shaking with adrenaline, shitting myself,"
I hope this lady re-reads this several times, to see how it contradicts itself.
Sadly, this is typical of many cults.
I know for a fact that many of Peter Young's students have normalised his abusive behaviour to the point where shitting yourself and shaking with adrenaline - objective signs of intense fear - no longer mentally fit into the "abuse" category.
These sad statements show how a person can be made to openly contradict themselves, which means lie to themselves, without even realising, even about bad things that are being done to them.
Peter Young did that.
Peter Young says being abused by him is part of the process, exactly as she describes she felt was the case, and still feels is the case.
This cruel to be kind method is now completely debunked by Western science and psychology, and has always been rejected by Buddhism, because it is ineffective.
This method simply cannot lead to compassion (bodhiccita), because from it's very basis, it contains lack of compassion (cruelty).
I commend "rinpochehelpedme" for for her honesty, bravery, and open-mindedness.
This did make me think of a few other points that might be of interest:
“Now - Has he shouted? Yes, many times, that's his thing I think, but it's not abusive as far as I remember. I've had him shouting down the phone at me before where I was shaking with adrenaline, shitting myself, but when I saw him after he was lovely to me. I saw it as when a parent see's their child heading for danger, what do they do? They get that childs attention. “
This is what psychologists call “infantilisation”.
Peter Young puts adults into a frame of mind where they accept being treated like naughty children.
Peter Young even justifies this by using the same example this lady gives.
The bottom line true reality is: adults with real issues, or seekers on the path, are not naughty children.
Treating them as such is ineffective. Western mind sciences and Buddhism both agree on this.
The reason it is ineffective is that whatever disciplines or practices the person undertakes, they will continue to feel themselves to be a “naughty child” that is now doing well, but might act-up at any moment.
An effective method results in the person accepting that part of themselves that is a “naughty child”. In doing so, that “naughty child” transforms into a healthy adult version of itself.
The experience on the inside is completely different, and the effects of this method are permanent and totally positive.
This transformation is entirely possible without any aggression – in fact cannot work by aggression.
This is also not some esoteric hard to find method. In fact, any trauma recovery therapist of any school would recognise this method, because it boils down: to treat adults like adults.
The reason Peter Young and most cult leaders actively enforce infantilisation as their method, is that once an adult has accepted being treated like a child on one occasion, it is proven psychologically that the same adult is more easily treated like a child on a second occasion, and on a different subject. This leads straight to mind-control.
“The tools he gave me all those years ago helped me to the point that I now live in a beautiful part of the world, I feel very much at peace, obv not all the time but it's a work in progress and I have a very comfortable life most of the time.”
Here’s what I've found: The tools he gave you didn’t need to come with the shouting and aggression.
In fact, the shouting and aggression reduced their effectiveness.
You’ve developed, and overcome, but you would have done so with far less struggle, no need for continued “top ups”, and far faster, had you been taught those things by a truly authorised and properly trained person.
In some other ways, what he did was overwrite your existing abuse with new abuse.
I agree this seems to be effective in the short term, as the person becomes more scared of the new abuse than the old abuse, so the effects of the old abuse are painted over.
However, it is not truly effective. When the person loses their fear of the new abuser, the old patterns will re-emerge. In this way, it creates dependency in the trauma survivor on the new abuser to maintain a threat of abuse.
Without the threat of more abuse, the trauma survivor ends up feeling they might “revert back”.
This seems to be what you describe you experience some of the time.
This is exactly how Peter Young justifies continuing to shout at students that have been with him for 20+ years.
What he effectively says is that people can be scared all the way into enlightenment. This is patently stupid.
The effective method is to empower the trauma survivor to integrate their bad experiences into a healthy sense of self.
Then there is no possible “reverting back”, and the trauma survivor is truly free of the trauma, and the PTSD.
You can find these methods through trauma recovery specialists, they’re very easy to find these days.
“There are some people who learn by being cuddled and told how wonderful they are but I was not one of those, I met people who tried to do that with me and I walked all over them, I needed someone like Rinpoche to not take any of my shit and just say "hey, you're being an asshole to people, here's how you can stop" xD”
I hear you.
The issue is he would have continued to treat you in the same way had you become a nun. This is what he does to his students, forever.
No matter what you did, he would have continued to make you believe you were an asshole.
Ask any of his students what they honestly believe Peter Young thinks of them.
You want to say i'm brainwashed then that's your choice, but i'll tell you, i'm a single mum, with a good relationship to my sons dad, i'm living abroad and I feel very strong and I owe a lot of that to Rinpoche.
I don’t think you are brainwashed. You've kept enough of a distance to understand many things about Peter Young his inner circle have totally lost sight of.
I do think you owe yourself all the credit for that strong feeling and the good things you have in your life.
Peter Young makes his students feel that the good things they achieve are thanks to him, and so without him the good things might stop happening.
Again, the dependence.
The true bottom line reality is that you are responsible for these good things, not Peter Young.
I fully recognise that he encourages you to feel he is responsible in some way for your progress, and whether that's true or not could be debated.
What can’t be debated is that Buddhism doesn’t agree with this way of thinking.
By feeling you “owe a lot of that” to Peter Young, you are actually robbing yourself of responsibility, and therefore capability to act for the good in the world.
By fully accepting you did these good things for yourself, your concrete belief in your capacity to do good for others will increase.
Your experience of, and sense of ownership of, a healthy sense of self will be stronger. You will literally feel yourself to be a better person that you feel right now!
Therefore you will do even more good things, for yourself, and for others. This is Buddhist thought, in a nutshell: You are responsible, so enjoy it.
A student of course feels grateful to a teacher for their insight and guidance, but are clear that they owe their progress solely to their own efforts.
A real Lama would have made this clear to you in many different ways.
Believing someone else is largely responsible for our progress is both factually incorrect, and actually slows us down.
On this, again, Western science, common sense, and Buddhist findings are in perfect agreement.
The thing is, I don't hold "rinpochehelpedme" at fault there.
It is rather further evidence of the way Peter Young does not teach compassion.
Peter Young's need to inflict aggression and violence alongside his "care" is very clear from her description.
"but it's not abusive as far as I remember. I've had him shouting down the phone at me before where I was shaking with adrenaline, shitting myself,"
I hope this lady re-reads this several times, to see how it contradicts itself.
Sadly, this is typical of many cults.
I know for a fact that many of Peter Young's students have normalised his abusive behaviour to the point where shitting yourself and shaking with adrenaline - objective signs of intense fear - no longer mentally fit into the "abuse" category.
These sad statements show how a person can be made to openly contradict themselves, which means lie to themselves, without even realising, even about bad things that are being done to them.
Peter Young did that.
Peter Young says being abused by him is part of the process, exactly as she describes she felt was the case, and still feels is the case.
This cruel to be kind method is now completely debunked by Western science and psychology, and has always been rejected by Buddhism, because it is ineffective.
This method simply cannot lead to compassion (bodhiccita), because from it's very basis, it contains lack of compassion (cruelty).
I commend "rinpochehelpedme" for for her honesty, bravery, and open-mindedness.
This did make me think of a few other points that might be of interest:
“Now - Has he shouted? Yes, many times, that's his thing I think, but it's not abusive as far as I remember. I've had him shouting down the phone at me before where I was shaking with adrenaline, shitting myself, but when I saw him after he was lovely to me. I saw it as when a parent see's their child heading for danger, what do they do? They get that childs attention. “
This is what psychologists call “infantilisation”.
Peter Young puts adults into a frame of mind where they accept being treated like naughty children.
Peter Young even justifies this by using the same example this lady gives.
The bottom line true reality is: adults with real issues, or seekers on the path, are not naughty children.
Treating them as such is ineffective. Western mind sciences and Buddhism both agree on this.
The reason it is ineffective is that whatever disciplines or practices the person undertakes, they will continue to feel themselves to be a “naughty child” that is now doing well, but might act-up at any moment.
An effective method results in the person accepting that part of themselves that is a “naughty child”. In doing so, that “naughty child” transforms into a healthy adult version of itself.
The experience on the inside is completely different, and the effects of this method are permanent and totally positive.
This transformation is entirely possible without any aggression – in fact cannot work by aggression.
This is also not some esoteric hard to find method. In fact, any trauma recovery therapist of any school would recognise this method, because it boils down: to treat adults like adults.
The reason Peter Young and most cult leaders actively enforce infantilisation as their method, is that once an adult has accepted being treated like a child on one occasion, it is proven psychologically that the same adult is more easily treated like a child on a second occasion, and on a different subject. This leads straight to mind-control.
“The tools he gave me all those years ago helped me to the point that I now live in a beautiful part of the world, I feel very much at peace, obv not all the time but it's a work in progress and I have a very comfortable life most of the time.”
Here’s what I've found: The tools he gave you didn’t need to come with the shouting and aggression.
In fact, the shouting and aggression reduced their effectiveness.
You’ve developed, and overcome, but you would have done so with far less struggle, no need for continued “top ups”, and far faster, had you been taught those things by a truly authorised and properly trained person.
In some other ways, what he did was overwrite your existing abuse with new abuse.
I agree this seems to be effective in the short term, as the person becomes more scared of the new abuse than the old abuse, so the effects of the old abuse are painted over.
However, it is not truly effective. When the person loses their fear of the new abuser, the old patterns will re-emerge. In this way, it creates dependency in the trauma survivor on the new abuser to maintain a threat of abuse.
Without the threat of more abuse, the trauma survivor ends up feeling they might “revert back”.
This seems to be what you describe you experience some of the time.
This is exactly how Peter Young justifies continuing to shout at students that have been with him for 20+ years.
What he effectively says is that people can be scared all the way into enlightenment. This is patently stupid.
The effective method is to empower the trauma survivor to integrate their bad experiences into a healthy sense of self.
Then there is no possible “reverting back”, and the trauma survivor is truly free of the trauma, and the PTSD.
You can find these methods through trauma recovery specialists, they’re very easy to find these days.
“There are some people who learn by being cuddled and told how wonderful they are but I was not one of those, I met people who tried to do that with me and I walked all over them, I needed someone like Rinpoche to not take any of my shit and just say "hey, you're being an asshole to people, here's how you can stop" xD”
I hear you.
The issue is he would have continued to treat you in the same way had you become a nun. This is what he does to his students, forever.
No matter what you did, he would have continued to make you believe you were an asshole.
Ask any of his students what they honestly believe Peter Young thinks of them.
You want to say i'm brainwashed then that's your choice, but i'll tell you, i'm a single mum, with a good relationship to my sons dad, i'm living abroad and I feel very strong and I owe a lot of that to Rinpoche.
I don’t think you are brainwashed. You've kept enough of a distance to understand many things about Peter Young his inner circle have totally lost sight of.
I do think you owe yourself all the credit for that strong feeling and the good things you have in your life.
Peter Young makes his students feel that the good things they achieve are thanks to him, and so without him the good things might stop happening.
Again, the dependence.
The true bottom line reality is that you are responsible for these good things, not Peter Young.
I fully recognise that he encourages you to feel he is responsible in some way for your progress, and whether that's true or not could be debated.
What can’t be debated is that Buddhism doesn’t agree with this way of thinking.
By feeling you “owe a lot of that” to Peter Young, you are actually robbing yourself of responsibility, and therefore capability to act for the good in the world.
By fully accepting you did these good things for yourself, your concrete belief in your capacity to do good for others will increase.
Your experience of, and sense of ownership of, a healthy sense of self will be stronger. You will literally feel yourself to be a better person that you feel right now!
Therefore you will do even more good things, for yourself, and for others. This is Buddhist thought, in a nutshell: You are responsible, so enjoy it.
A student of course feels grateful to a teacher for their insight and guidance, but are clear that they owe their progress solely to their own efforts.
A real Lama would have made this clear to you in many different ways.
Believing someone else is largely responsible for our progress is both factually incorrect, and actually slows us down.
On this, again, Western science, common sense, and Buddhist findings are in perfect agreement.