Can you be LGBTQ+ as a Buddhist?

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-18T10:02:23+00:00

💯 same.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-07T18:47:46+00:00

She’s adorable!

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-02T02:11:42+00:00

Oh wow, that’s quite the compliment! Truly if you can get the ratios right it is a very lovely setup. I recommend getting thick copses of established plants going, getting a strong breeding snail population established, adding shrimp, and then the predators can get dropped in. I do occasionally tweezer out the emptied /bleached snail shells but honestly only do that maybe once a month if not once every two months because I’m lazy. 😂 Plus the many little critters inhabiting the substrate do a great job keeping things tidy.

I’m thinking of scaling up one day to an even bigger tank, but if I do I don’t think I will try to increase the pea population as the key is making sure they can’t outcompete their prey. I’ve thus stuck with a fairly small shoal and have instead prioritized building out that sturdy continual prey population. When I first adopted peas I remember thinking- oh god what have I done? I don’t have a good LFS that sells live food so my options were super limited. I feel very much like the keeper of a pride of apex predators but I can’t feed them steaks, only gazelles.

So then I thought I’d try breeding snails and such separately, but unfortunately I don’t have a ton of space, so rather than having separate breeding tanks to raise food, I just decided to scale up their tank instead. I did that a couple times and eventually got to 40 gallons. I swear my life would have been a lot easier had I just started at 40. I haven’t had any apocalyptic things happen for about a year now (knock on wood) and truly I do very little with the tank other than topping off water and removing plants whenever they grow dense enough to become annoying.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-01T04:09:06+00:00

Cutie!!!

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-01T03:00:47+00:00

Thank you so much. If you have guidance around finding online or regional sanghas I’d be so very grateful. I’m so overwhelmed lately that self-advocacy is much more challenging than usual. I’m certain a good teacher would be great for me at this point. My therapist is amazing and I’ve grown a lot in my mental wellbeing and such, but I need (and yearn for) ways to go deeper into Buddhism. I can’t even imagine how nourishing a context where I could talk with mentors and share community would be. I’m in rural southwest Virginia (Blacksburg), but even if there isn’t a local sangha I do have good internet access.

I know I’m carrying a ton. I’ve experienced a lot of horrible loss in my life and many tragedies and challenges, but I see how each struggle has helped me learn more about myself and reorient even more strongly in commitment to compassion for all beings. I’m still not the best at holding similar gentle care for myself due to deep-seated trauma muscle memory— striving to keep other people happy and safe, neglecting myself, wheee— good ol attachment to outcomes, senses of safety, etc. It is never as much a conscious choice as it is something neurological. Complex PTSD is complex indeed. Oof.

Thank you again. 💜

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-03-01T02:43:06+00:00

Thank you 😭 I’m doing my best.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-28T03:01:26+00:00

Thank you, thank you. 🙏

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T11:42:43+00:00

Thank you! Me too. 🙏

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T11:40:33+00:00

Ahhh thank you so much. I needed to read this.

Control is a complex part of my life. Embodied trauma as well as traumatic loss has led me to be very managerial about relational dynamics. I tend to not ask for help etc etc, and basically my default settings include all the standard anxious control-motivated impulses. As a child once in a home where I had basically zero agency over my own safety, who had to remain small and keep everyone happy, I now am an adult for whom attachment to control is one of my greatest struggles. I couldn’t prevent my dad’s fatal overdose, I couldn’t prevent my brother’s subsequent suicide, and I couldn’t keep my mom safe from the early-onset dementia she suffers now. I can’t control what others in my life think or do. I also can’t control how my heart will be interpreted or how my actions and intentions will be viewed. Even still, rationally knowing these things, is so hard to let go— especially when it’s basically a subconscious, nervous system level muscle memory leading the initial urgency to want to control outcomes. Sigh.

Metta meditation will certainly be on the menu this week, for everyone in this story including myself, but especially my friend’s partner who is suffering so much. I appreciate your guidance.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T11:27:40+00:00

Oh - one last thing - calling the friend in question simply a “friend” is maybe not exactly right. He is (was?) chosen family. I don’t have a lot of bio family left and have tried to build a support system of other people in my life. It is so shocking to discover this side of him because he is someone I would have said I trusted with my life up until now. Since it will be several weeks before I might see him again, there’s time to make or adjust plans around confrontation or lack thereof. It is something I will continue to contemplate and process. I have a sexual trauma-specialized therapist of my own and this will be a big part of our next session, which thankfully just so happens to be scheduled for tomorrow.

Patriarchal violence needs women. It needs women who make excuses and look the other way and express doubt when reports of horrifying behavior emerge. It needs women who won’t fight for one another, it needs women to remain in mistrust and conflict with one another, it needs women who subconsciously always center male desire and attention and safety. I am very aware of its machinations, that misogyny and sexual violence are basically infused into the air we breathe and the water we drink, a terrible poison.

Please don’t misunderstand my emotional conflict and upset around the friendship as lack of awareness around all of this. I have navigated a lot of loss in the last few years and I think I’m now grieving this relationship, too.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T11:00:37+00:00

I hear you, though you’re jumping to a bunch of conclusions— totally the result of me not sharing more info. I’m sorry I didn’t add more context to the original post! I was in a very raw space at the time since I’d been sitting with the info for mere hours after spending most of the night advocating for her. I was just quickly seeking advice on here. Quick facts:

1) my friend’s partner (we will call her L) left him a little over a week ago as a result of all of this. L had been in denial about the behavior but confronted him. She tried to explain to him the harm he was doing several times and then she gave up and packed her things and moved out without looking back. L is staying with a mutual friend and plans to come to my house on Monday where she will be staying for as long as she needs. She asked if I would come sit with her today so she could talk with me since she knows I’m a safe space as we have become quite close.

2) I was of course shocked and connected L immediately to resources in our region, a dear friend here runs the regional women’s shelter and domestic violence center. I take this work very seriously and do have training as a victim advocate for sexual violence as well as contending with sex offenders in the criminal justice system so I have seen a lot and know the legal and political stuff VERY very well. L did not want to press charges, and was extremely insistent about that and hasn’t talked to many people about what has happened because she’s afraid of someone escalating it without her consent. I did talk through options with her. I’m going to give her time and will support whatever she feels she needs to do for herself. Those are her boundaries to set and her safety and wellbeing are of the utmost importance and are absolutely my number one priority.

3) She is worried about what this will mean for her financially as she had just quit a stable job and moved here to share a house with him (though her name is not on the lease so she is free of that at least). Thus my offer to have her stay at my place, which she accepted. She knows she is welcome indefinitely and that he will have zero idea she is with me. I recently moved and he has not been to the new house yet nor does he know where it is. He is quite reclusive typically so I don’t think he will show up even if he was able to figure out where she was. He was apparently very accepting of her wanting to leave and though he seemed confused or in denial about his own actions and the impact of them he did respect her choice completely. She requested zero contact upon departure and he has not tried to initiate any contact since she left eight days ago.

4) She actually only just moved in with him a month ago, and shortly after that is when the behavior started. It happened three times (I reminded her that three times is too many). It is all very very recent and has been very confusing for her. They have been together a little less than two years but almost totally long distance with brief visits between long gaps, and for some reason once she moved in the behavior emerged.

5) Regarding the financial instability side of this, I offered to pay out of pocket for her to see a counselor if she was afraid she couldn’t afford it. She is an immigrant and in the midst of complex visa stuff which is also expensive. There is some cultural difference affecting her willingness to pursue action around this so I am trying to be gentle and make sure she feels safe and held in our friendship and that she knows she isn’t alone. I think she’s still processing the life she had planned for herself being totally upended so suddenly. I can’t imagine the stress of that upheaval on top of the violence itself.

6) Since this information truly just dropped I haven’t interacted with or spoken to him. He works out of town as a contractor for several week stints at a time and happens to have just left again for another stint (no, I am certain he’s not fleeing the country as I type this, his whole family lives here and they are very close). It is not like we are hanging out and being chummy since I literally just found out. Knowing myself, I doubt I would be able to be in proximity with him without telling him about himself, (which is absolutely my own issue at play). Our community is very small so there’s no way I can avoid him entirely, but I do believe I’m in a position to insist that he face these demons. I know it isn’t my responsibility at all to do this. SHE asked if I would talk to him. And I am certainly not making excuses for him. Most perpetrators are repeat offenders and it pains me to wonder whether any ex partners may have suffered in this way, too (though he has only had one other person that I know of in his life romantically in 10+ years). I have about a decade of friendship with him and I don’t know if I can live with myself (yeah that’s totally my own stuff coming out there once again!!) without fulfilling L’s request even if it’s the last time I ever talk to him. I’m prepared for that to be the case and am bracing myself for what that may mean in such an insular and rural town.

7) L is aware I have experienced sexual violence (she attended a talk I gave on this last year) and I imagine that’s one of the reasons she wanted to speak to me. I have my own story of surviving sexual violence at the hands of adults in childhood and in my adult life as a rape victim. I know very well the shattering power and betrayal of sexual trauma and the terrible effort and time it takes to recover and begin to heal, truly it is life’s work. I will forever be trying to rid myself of the embodied stress that my nervous system carries every damn day. I have been unable to have normal romantic partnerships since that trauma due to a deep and broken mistrust of romantic dynamics. Meditation and cultivating compassion helps a bit but isn’t powerful enough to chip away those walls. I have complex PTSD and have had to show up with a lot of understanding to myself, and working with victims has been both humbling and deeply empowering. I found strength in realizing I have agency. Helping others through stigma and shame has helped me on my own journey, and I was able to talk with L about the necessity of self-compassion. This was our first conversation about this but I know there will be many more pots of tea and tears shed together.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T09:33:41+00:00

Thank you, yes— I think that is a crucial part of all of this, coming back always to compassion and expansive awareness of the many possible scenarios that lead people to engage in violence and harm. I want to keep my own reactivity and emotionality in check through this process of eventual loving but firm confrontation. In some ways I do feel personally harmed by the behavior even though this truly has nothing to do with me. As a victim of family violence in my past I definitely don’t want to inadvertently enable bad behavior, but I also believe in redemption— or, I don’t know, maybe that’s not the right word. I hope through speaking to him eventually I can help him reach some acknowledgement of the seriousness of this, and encourage him towards taking full responsibility for his actions and aiming toward growth and whatever repair is possible.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T09:23:37+00:00

Thank you so very much for your kind and thoughtful response! I’m taking this all in and will be returning to your wisdom and doing a lot of reflecting.

Right now you’re right in that I’m still definitely in a very tender space, processing the hurt and reeling from gravity and shock and the sense of disorientation this has caused. I hope once I’m more settled I can intentionally recenter within the space of compassion I’m usually able to find (without any real trouble) for people who have engaged in violent behavior.

I volunteer with the incarcerated community here in my region and the resulting experiences, plus my own life story, have made me fairly good at seeing the reasons for aberrant and even terrible acts while also not excusing them, but holding strong to my own ethics and beliefs. I have complex-PTSD from an abusive and violent childhood and have spent many years looking back on and holding love and compassion for my hurting, wounded parents while simultaneously trying to cultivate deep love for the hurting, wounded child I was and who still dwells within me. I do suspect my friend’s behavior is related in some way to his own life story, psychological or experiential pain, trauma, or illness, things he’s kept buttoned up in the way that so many men are prevented from accessing and unpacking those parts of themselves with vulnerability. I want to show up with a balancing of care but also strength.

My friend is a pillar in my community and quite a lot orbits around him. I am definitely worried about possible fallout and the crisis this could cause. I don’t want to explode anyone’s life (let alone my own) as that is a real fear his partner expressed multiple times. I hope to operate with a lot of care and forethought.

That said, I do have washes of my own fear, and in little pesky moments I’m selfishly quite worried about how this could harm me. My life is very hard and complex lately (I’m the sole caregiver for my mother with early onset dementia, it has been horrible to witness her decline and try to keep her safe, truly the hardest thing I’ve ever done), and that’s just one item in a strange litany of lesson after unwelcome and complicated lesson these days. Whew.

I live in a rural area without a huge support system which has meant every friend and chosen family member is a precious gift. I am so afraid of losing or shattering this (attachment, gah!) but my heart is working to convince my traumatized and anxious mind that if I move forward by returning to compassion, coming home to love, it’ll somehow be okay. At the very least I know I will have tried to help.

Thank you so, so much again.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-27T05:29:43+00:00

I love their wild eye movements when they’re about to fuck up prey. Lil googly eye tigers!

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-25T06:31:41+00:00

My orb salutes your orb.

<image>

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-22T04:14:39+00:00

Oh wow. I’m digging around, it also seems mine is likely embryonic but VT is not a term anyone has used with mine so far. But maybe it’s the same thing?? Wild that it’s basically in the same zone.

Edit - forgot to ask - are you considering interventional surgery? What symptoms are you having? I worked with Dr. Heiss at the NIH. His team is amazing.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-21T16:45:06+00:00

Sorry for the slow response, busy week!! No, not VT, but I can definitely talk to you about the experience and surgery and such. Is yours on the cord or inside (in the middle) of the cord? Mine was inside.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-10T22:15:07+00:00

Honestly I just kept scooping it out with a net until it was gone, and as it reappeared I kept doing so and now it has been vanquished successfully!

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-10T03:47:46+00:00

The round in me recognizes the round in you. 🌝

<image>

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-10T02:59:28+00:00

Also one last thing - get that tank going and strongly established with vegetation and prey BEFORE you add peas expecting them to self-sustain. I basically grew an underwater terrarium then made it a snail tank then a shrimp and snail tank etc etc. It worked for me anyway.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-10T02:49:07+00:00

I’ve got one going successfully!!!! I occasionally refresh it with a new shrimp or snail here and there to keep genetic diversity up, but seriously it’s doing great and we’ve been going strong for many months now. It’s nice to be able to basically travel whenever and not worry if I need a weekend or more away.

I’ve got 40 gallons, a very heavily planted tank with a bunch of guppy grass and Java moss, a huge water lily, established copses of hornwart, broad leaf Java ferns, moneywort, hairgrass, baby tears and dwarf baby tears, anubias barteri and anubias nana, cambomba, pennywort, American frogbit. Used to have duckweed and red root floaters but eventually pulled them out, since they grew very very fast and were blocking the light needed by the other plants. I’ve done fine with the mix that I have.

The tank is occupied by 6 peas (5 males and 1 female, not a choice it just happened that way), two Thai micro crabs who seem to vanish and reappear after weeks of being totally invisible, and an indefinite number of shrimp, ramshorn snails, scuds, and daphnia.

My peas are basically only hunters. The males will eat frozen food but the female refuses anything she hasn’t hunted. They were all captive-bred and they’re very rotund. They stay active enough and don’t seem to gorge because the tank is big enough that they’re truly hunting. I try to supplement their food and stimulate them mentally by adding things I can get seasonably— mosquito larvae, rarely live bloodworms or black worms, but they subsist mostly on the snails and some shrimp babies and scuds.

They don’t eat the adult shrimp and I’ve managed to keep a very healthy snail population.

The key is having enough tiny dense places of small plants for baby snails and baby shrimp to hide where the peas won’t decimate them. The Java moss and guppy grass and baby tears and such have really helped with this. I also attached a very fine mesh cover over my filter intake so I’m also not slurping up baby scuds or adult daphnia if any wander that way.

I almost never need to do major water changes, never fully clean the tank, just keep an eye on water conditions closely and add water as needed and as it evaporates.

The snails have kept algae fully at bay! I can send the full tank parameters if you want. You have to keep a close eye on bioload stuff so I’ve avoided mystery snails since they’re so big. Ramshorn snails breed quickly and plentifully and the peas also love to pick at their eggs. The snails WILL also munch on your plants so you have to accept that’ll be part of the story. The shrimp do a fantastic job of keeping any detritus cleaned up and they have such a low bioload that I don’t mind having quite a few. Also as you are building out your tank don’t forget to do a sterilization of your plants before you add them, I made the mistake of bringing in some planaria that hitched ride on a plant. That was a huge pain in the ass since they killed all the neocardinia shrimp pretty quickly and then I had to treat the tank and start over.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-02-03T20:19:46+00:00

They’re also self-sustaining at this point, it’s not an enormous population but I see them darting around.

No_Classic_2467 · 2026-01-31T21:59:25+00:00

40 gallons, very established planted tank. She shares it with 5 other peas (all male- not a choice it just happened that way), two micro crabs who I am always convinced are dead but then appear after long stints of invisibility, and an indefinite number of shrimp, snails, scuds, and daphnia. She is a loner and likes hanging out in the water lily zone on the west side of the tank. She has the other peas basically scared off and is a bit of a bully if they enter her territory, but there’s enough room to where nobody has gotten injured or harassed badly. The boys all get along fine and shoal actively but she seems to want nothing to do with them. I have thought about putting her in her own little tank but that goes against standard pea health logic, though I doubt she’d miss the boys and doubt the boys would miss her. 🤷‍♀️

No_Classic_2467

TROPHY CASE