Okay, So since I don't really have a schedule right now and I'm doing a home-study course, I decided to create a schedule for myself that includes a meditation hour at the Buddhist Center in town. I live outside of NYC in an affluent suburb although where I live we have more poverty than the surrounding area where the Buddhist Center is located.

And, so the teacher was giving her lecture and she mentions some basics of buddhist thought which includes letting go of our delusions. She also mentions that the emperor of Japan said that Japan deserved the tsunami, that they are a people of greed.

I immediately felt anger rise in me and I raised my hand to challenge her. I wasn't sure at all the emperor himself or his family has suffered in a material way but I could surely see them being affected by greed. And the people who were affected by the tsunami, where they greedy? Or where they just the poor working and middle class trying to get by??? I was so offended by her mentioning this and got triggered. I wasn't sure if it's because I'm a codependent in recovery who has suffered from years of self-neglect that I'm finding all this hard to swallow??? I get the basics of Buddhism but I myself have never been caught in any kind of greedy, money making, excess lifestyle. Although, I know for sure that probably many people in my area and those who show up in this buddhist center probably have been caught up in all this stuff. I'm just struggling with how Buddhism applies to the person who actually suffered from neglect?? I was and am having a hard time reconciling it all.

I felt so transparent about challenging her. Afterwards, they served soup and I forced myself to stay and face my anger. People engaged me in talk, thankfully, so I didn't completely ostracize myself. One woman said that well, you're clearly a beginner and it's hard to come into the middle of a conversation like that.

Anyone else into Buddhism???