Hi Sia

Thank you for engaging on my story.

I am sorry to hear about your indoctrination and wish you lots of strength and courage to overcome this.

Almost by definition, indoctrination is the worse possible way to approach matters of education and learning. What follows in your comment speaks of lasting resentment and anger for injustices done - which sort of makes this point by itself.

For these reasons, I wish to send you support in your quest to channel these sentiments into some peace of mind.

There is much to say about the fantastic claims that some so-called Buddhist schools have been making over the centuries. It is not up to me to do so here.

For now, related to your comment, let me single out two aspects only:

1) For the Heart Sutra and its teaching about the (mutually dependent) relationship between the realization of emptiness and the perfection of wisdom, I kindly invite you to revisit the text. If that would be of any help, there is a nice English translation available here: https://thebuddhistcentre.com/system/files/groups/files/heart_sutra.pdf

2) You are so right to raise concerns about the prevalence of patriarchy through history. To the credit of the historical Buddha, however, he seems to have been among the first male influencers of his time, 25+ centuries ago (!), to have acted upon the very same concerns. To the utter shock of the community around him, the Buddha chose to go along with the wishes of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, the aunt who had raised him after the premature death of his mother, and he supported her in founding the order of Buddhist nuns - which went on to produce numerous (in their time) world-famous female teachers. The uniqueness of his choice in this matter is shown by the return to patriarchy in many of the later traditions, which in most cases happened in places where Buddhism got entangled with affairs of the state.

For that matter: mingling philosophical traditions with state affairs has never been a very good idea :)

For an inspiring read on all this, check out "Daughters of the Buddha: Teachings by Ancient Indian Women" by Bhikkhu Analayo, with a foreword by Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, 2022.

Wishing you well, Sia!

FL