belindabunny27

I don’t have a personal preference for any accent as someone who’s just listening. When I’m out in public, like in a restaurant or a park, I’ll naturally tune in if I hear someone nearby speaking with a strong accent — it’s just curiosity. If I can mostly understand them, I’ll find myself trying to follow their conversation. Even if I can’t make out a word, no matter what language it is, I’ll still listen and feel even more intrigued.

I feel like most regions have at least three main accent types. First is the socially accepted, codified variety: precisely pronounced, calm and universally understandable. Second is upbeat and folksy, snappy with lots of slang and super easy to pick out, often seen as interesting. Third is slower, softer, and often associated with fashionable, business-savvy regions.

In Abrahamic religions, there’s an eternal place where sinners suffer endless punishment. But Buddhism follows the ideas of no-self and impermanence. Buddhas and bodhisattvas don’t believe hell is a fixed, everlasting place. Even so, Buddhism does speak of hell, and many sutras describe it in detail just to guide people away from evil deeds.

Simply put, this is what hell means in Buddhism. Bodhisattvas urge everyone not to do bad things. No matter how cold-hearted someone is, the longer they keep doing wrong, the more their conscience will hit hard once they wake up. This overwhelming guilt makes their mind conjure up extreme suffering.

If a person never feels remorse and keeps committing evil all their life—like those who kill innocent people, hurt others or start wars just for wealth, power and fame—once they pass away, their consciousness leaves the physical body. Pulled by all the bad karma they built up, they feel a sharp sinking feeling and instantly fall into realms of terrible pain, hundreds of times worse than any suffering on earth. This is Buddhist hell, an unbreakable karmic law that not even Buddhas and bodhisattvas can change.

To put it plainly, our body acts like a cushion while we’re alive. Physical pain and aging are already softened and buffered by our flesh. Once we die, this cushion is gone. Our consciousness faces all karmic consequences directly with no buffer, making all suffering magnified hundreds and thousands of times.

Even Buddha once suffered in hell in one of his past lives. That story is really touching, I’ll tell you later.

People rarely talk about these things in daily life, yet everyone thinks about them deep down. When we read news, many feel life is unfair—good people die young while wicked ones live comfortably into old age. We feel the world is dark and unjust, but that’s only because we’re limited by mortal perception of time and the universe. We fail to see the full picture of karma and reincarnation.

Good deeds bring good fortune, and evil deeds bring bad retribution. It’s just like universal energy balance. Rewards and punishments don’t show up right away, for karmic rules are never straightforward math. Some cruel people may have accumulated great good karma in past lives, so their blessings haven’t run out yet. But good fortune can never cancel out evil karma. Once their blessings are used up, all bitter karmic fruits will strike them at once. There are countless such cases in real life and history, most of which just go unnoticed by ordinary people.

That’s why the Buddha said gaining a human body is extremely rare and we must cherish it deeply.

The three evil realms — hell, hungry ghost and animal realms — are filled with unbearable agony. Beings there suffer so much that they have no energy left to think or practice Buddhism.

Heavenly realms are full of endless joy instead. Celestial beings indulge in pleasure and never feel like cultivating themselves or learning the Dharma. Yet once their blessings run out, they still fall back into samsara. What’s more, the five signs of heavenly decline bring far greater pain than ordinary people’s aging and death.

So the human form is shaped by karmic forces, and it’s also the perfect vessel for spiritual practice. When hardships come, our physical body shields us from total collapse. This natural buffer is a precious chance earned from our past good deeds.

If we squander this opportunity to draw near to wisdom and compassion, it will take countless eons before we ever get another such precious chance again.

For those who experience hell, whether alive or after passing away, hell is simply the total sum of all delayed sufferings that their consciousness can no longer deny or hide from. It’s just like when anesthesia wears off — all the suppressed pain surges back all at once. That’s why Buddhism states hell is manifested purely from one’s own mind.

Many people wonder why Buddhas and Bodhisattvas cannot save beings out of hell, given their boundless Dharma and divine powers. If saving someone meant pulling them straight out of hell as easily as scooping up fish, it is truly impossible.

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have always been saving all living beings by guiding them to awaken and gain true insight. It is not that they lack the power to drag people out of suffering realms. Instead, hell is self-judgment born from one’s own mind and awareness. If they forcefully take away all pain, it is no different from cutting away people’s conscience, just like frontal lobotomy. In that case, people will never truly learn not to harm others.

Take a child sticking their hand into fire and getting burned as an example. A mother can never feel the pain in their place. She can only hold the child, weep and dress the wound. The pain has to be felt by the child themselves. Only after experiencing the hurt will they never dare do it again.

To sum up, karma is not a verdict, but a natural law.

Buddha is no judge, and karmic force is never meant to punish anyone. It is an inherent universal rule with no one pulling the strings behind it.

The same goes for hell. Once evil deeds are done, one’s consciousness will inevitably manifest intense suffering after death. No Buddhas or bodhisattvas can pardon this law, just as even top scientists cannot stop the Big Bang.

A true teacher never takes exams for students, but imparts knowledge so they can pass on their own. Buddha fully explained the law of cause and effect, and taught people the way out of samsara: precepts, meditation and wisdom. The rest of the journey has to be walked by oneself.

If people ignore these teachings, refuse to practice and keep doing evil in life, karmic retribution will inevitably come after death. It is not that Buddha is unwilling to save them, but that he cannot. For all those painful realms are created by their own minds.

These passages were all Lydia’s portrayal of Helen. Her original writing was so beautiful, and my retelling inevitably paled in comparison, serving only as a loose reference.

The timeline in Lydia’s original text was terribly jumbled. I sorted it out as best I could, inevitably leaving inconsistencies and gaps, though the overall narrative remained roughly coherent.

"I told a huge lie about someone. The first time she met me, she didn’t say she loved The Magnificent Queen. What she really liked was Speculations on the Millennium Temple."

"I met her at someone else’s party. I just thought she looked familiar. She took the initiative to greet me, said she knew me and admired me, then introduced herself—and that’s when I properly got to know her.

"Once we drank together. She couldn’t hold her liquor at all and got drunk easily. She told me all about her past. When she was in middle school, her father lost his job and her mother fell ill. She had to drop out of school. She washed dishes, sold clothes, and even worked as a substitute art teacher at a primary school.

"Her family had arranged a marriage for her back then; the wedding banquet was already prepared, and the man came from a well-off family. But she refused to marry him at all costs, and her family finally gave in. Later, she studied on her own and got into a junior college. By chance during her college years, she joined the county TV station to host a music program. After graduation, she moved up to the city station, then the state station, and eventually hosted the morning news on a satellite TV channel.

"Back then she lived in a rented place. She spent most of her salary supporting her family, paying for her mother’s medical bills and her younger sister’s schooling.

"When the top-tier national satellite TV opened new recruitments, she plucked up her courage to apply. She got eliminated in the first round by people with connections. Then a new program was looking for hosts in the second round, and she got picked. She moved up north and became a full-time official host. Later, she broke up with her civil servant boyfriend because of a long-distance relationship.

"I thought she was decent to get along with. For a while we were really close. We went shopping together, and I taught her how to pick luxury goods.

"Her younger sister later worked as a photographer for a socialite. When the socialite found out she was a national-level TV host, she challenged her to a drinking contest chugging bottles at a dinner party. She agreed, ended up losing badly, and even had to get an IV drip afterward. Still, the socialite treated her sister well and recommended her to work as a photographer for someone of even higher status.

"She had a really tough time back then. She got dumped by her nepo baby boyfriend and came to cry to me about it. But later I found faith, and she secured a formal establishment position through her workplace arrangement. We slowly drifted apart.

"She later got together with a man eight years younger than her—a pretty boy—and even thought she was bravely chasing true love. Around this time, she grew more and more beautiful and stylish. Even so, she still supported me when I did charity work. I went to visit her after she had her baby. When people bashed me, she comforted me. She always thought I was a good person who was just misunderstood.

"I met this woman before the first decade of the millennium was even halfway over. She is stillness, then storm; sunlight, then frost —rising like the sun blazing forth in splendor, appearing like a cloud rolling in out of nowhere. All these gifts were given to her by God, yet she stubbornly relied only on herself.

"Chatting with her, I learned she’d been through so many low points—things I’ll never experience in my entire life. She left her hometown when she grew up. A couple years ago, her hometown was hit by severe floods. She donated money and supplies. The locals thanked her to her face, but mocked her online, bringing up her past of dropping out to sell clothes and calling off her engagement. Someone she knew saw the posts and told her. She was heartbroken when she found out.

"Tell me, isn’t she pathetic? Never getting the respect she deserves her whole life? And yet… she is the Rose of Sharon.

"She dropped out of junior high, worked washing dishes and selling clothes for over a year. She studied independently to get into junior college, got a hosting gig at the county TV station while there, then moved on to city TV, state TV, and finally national-level TV.

"I say it was God’s plan. But she claims it was just the opportunities of the times. She even said one’s personal fate is tightly bound to the nation’s fate, and that she’s just a tiny drop in the vast current of the era. Total nonsense, if you ask me."

"A great many people have fallen out with me over faith, and plenty hold grudges against me too. But she is different."

"We once shared so many stories, yet all of them have faded away with the wind."

Last time I talked about what led to their falling out. When Helen asked, “Where is God?”, she was crying out for help, yet Lydia handed her nothing but a blade of judgment. She had used faith as a weapon, stabbing someone who was already falling apart.

When Lydia realized she had been blocked, she was furious at first, then kept replaying everything over and over, before sinking into deep regret. The part of her that was not consumed by extreme faith knew full well she had hurt Helen.

Still, she could never bring herself to humble herself and offer a sincere apology, for what stood between them was far more than just a difference in faith. On her blog, Lydia gradually unpacked many old memories and the tangled turmoil inside her. Her writing was at times as simple and innocent as a child’s—like a little one who cannot understand why they have upset a good friend.

Curious onlookers eventually found her blog and left questions, some earnest, some mocking. She replied to all of them in her own unvarnished style. She never spoke with hidden sarcasm or subtle malice; there was no ill will to be felt in her words, only an unspoiled, stubborn integrity.

Slowly, many silent readers came to see how endearing and precious Lydia’s inner world truly was. They also understood why she had always run into one wall after another back in her days in the entertainment industry — because she had always kept an innocent, unworldly heart.

What puzzled Lydia most was why Helen refused to believe in God.

She wrote:

"Helen, who has rejected me, will sooner or later stumble and fall from grace, ending up back in the countryside working as a waitress. No, I wrote that wrong—not who rejected me, but who rejected God.

"I truly resent her. She does not know God, and hell awaits her sooner or later. Yet looking at her life, I can only see God’s special favor upon her. Why does God love her? It is simply not fair.

"She is a thorn bird trapped amid political strife, singing even as its flesh is pierced through.

"Sometimes I want to rail at God like Job, for He pours His blessings on one who does not love Him.

"She defeats every Goliath in her life, surviving every peril she faces.

"The sun shall not strike her by day, nor the moon by night.

"She is the rose of Sharon, and it is the Lord who blesses her.

"Even if one day she falls from grace, she will remain a beautiful scar in people’s memories.

"This is God saving her, plain and simple. Why won’t He save me?

"Have the maple leaves in her city turned red?

"Has the Rime River begun to freeze?

"Does her ideal still endure?"

Lydia herself explained it: "The Rose of Sharon comes from the Old Testament. Its original meaning is an extremely beautiful rose in the wild, growing strong, loving fiercely, and willing to sacrifice. What I mean is, for all her beauty, she carries hidden sorrows. She has sacrificed so much for what she loves, yet she was meant to bloom for God alone."

Lydia also laid bare her undisguised resentment, her sense of unfairness, and her creeping jealousy. She kept wondering why God favored Helen so deeply, and why, for all her own devotion, God treated Helen differently and no one else. Her pastor told her to let it go, yet Lydia remained trapped in her obsession, unable to find any answer.

A lot of people grapple with this same question: Why does the Lord love those who do not believe in Him, the "heathens"? Why do their lives seem blessed by Him? I think this stems from a common religious misunderstanding—not the original teachings of Jesus, but those altered by institutionalized churches with power agendas.

From the start, Lydia was trapped in a false premise: Because I believe in the Lord, I am special, and He must bless me. They do not believe, so they will suffer.

But there was never any such logic.

In the eyes of God, all are equal. This kind of thinking ignores the vastness of the universe, the unknowability of fate, and even dares to presume God’s intentions. It overlooks the fact that when a person lives with integrity, kindness, and a drive toward truth and beauty, she is already living out what God intended her to be. She draws near to the light, and the light is drawn to her.

Looking at Helen’s own blog posts, she is truly a resilient person:

"Accept insomnia and loneliness calmly, and life will grow quieter and quieter. This confidence and strength is squeezed out of life day by day. You will suffer, but you will no longer fear that the ground beneath you will suddenly crumble—because you know every step you take is firm.

"Never forget this: Even grievances you feel you cannot bear, you must learn to carry. Do not expect the understanding, comfort, or encouragement others need, and you will never be disappointed.

"You must see love and light, and learn to transform and digest everything. Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on when they are weak—and you are that shoulder for others. You are the light. Do not go out."

If we look at this through Jesus’ teachings, what Lydia should see is evidence of God’s generosity—not unfairness. She claims both that Helen "will end up in hell" and that "God favors her especially." If God truly favors her, how could she possibly end up in hell?

From the perspective of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, Lydia’s doubts are classic manifestations of self-attachment and discriminating mind.

A Bodhisattva might instruct Lydia in this way:

"Lydia, you ask why God loves her, why she receives divine favor despite not believing. Yet what truly angers you is not God’s deeds, but the fact that you feel you have not been treated specially.

"Deep down, you hold an unspoken assumption: I believe, so I ought to be chosen and favored. She does not believe, so she deserves to suffer.

"When reality fails to fit this assumption, the foundation of your faith wavers. That thought of why not me is itself the only cage trapping you right now.

"Karma is not judgment, but natural law. It is not a reward bestowed upon her by God, but the fruit of her own past actions.

"Lydia, you left one kind of life — worldly and unacknowledged — for another — a life of faith, imagining yourself chosen. But the Buddha would ask: have you only changed your outer robes, or truly transformed your heart?

"You claim she will end up in hell, but what you truly crave is to see her suffer. This is not the heart of a Bodhisattva; this is resentment.

"The fire of resentment first burns the hand that holds the flame.

"Yet your kindness still shines with a cool, clear light amid this resentment. You see Helen’s pain; you sympathize with her, you feel for her. She is so beautiful, yet forced to sing through the storms of worldly strife. She is so strong, yet no one truly understands her vulnerability. These insights of yours are your inner radiance, and also divine grace.

"You ask why Helen reaps blessings? You must redefine what true blessing really is.

"Beauty, talent, career, fame, marriage, family, praise and admiration from others — these are merely worldly blessings. They fade like ephemeral flowers, vanish like morning dew and lightning, like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow — and they often bring greater suffering in their wake.

"True blessings are wisdom and compassion: a heart no longer tormented by why not me.

"If you can look upon Helen’s well-being without resentment, and instead offer sincere blessing — wishing her peace, and wishing peace for yourself too — in that moment, your blessings will surpass all worldly glory. For your heart will at last be free."

Lydia herself went through constant inner struggle, repeating the same words and emotions over and over.

"When she first got into trouble, I even worried about her. But it’s seeing her come through unscathed that makes me feel it’s all so unfair."

"It was absolutely God who saved her. Why wouldn’t God save me?"

"If something had happened to her back then, we would’ve both fallen from grace, both blacklisted. Maybe everything would have turned out differently."

"Truth is, I’ve never truly hated her."

"If she believed in God, things might have been different too.

"If she hadn’t gotten into the national public broadcaster, I would never have met her.

"If she hadn’t been good-looking, she’d probably still be selling clothes back in her hometown.

"There are just so many what-ifs."

"She used to call me a great beauty over dinner. She was still so unsophisticated back then, and I taught her how to pick Chanel."

"Maybe in another universe, we’re still friends."

The turning point came after Lydia finally decided to formally apologize to Helen.

Lydia wrote:

I don’t actually resent her.

I sent her a brief text to apologize a couple of days ago, and she suddenly replied today:

'Are you in town? Let’s grab a meal together.'

She’s always known I live away and only go to town occasionally. Right now I’m neither away nor in town. My partner won’t let me go see her.

I don’t think I’m fit to meet her. Someone with an impeccable political background would only get tainted just by associating with me. If I ever get into trouble someday, she might even get implicated just for having this meal with me. Maybe I should just let it go.

If we meet, make up, and then I end up going down a different path again someday, it would’ve been better not to meet at all.

I’m not going.

Lydia couldn’t hide her worry and wrote, "What if she yells at me?"

After much thought, she decided not to go after all, but she also made up her mind to send Helen a longer message.

We have no idea what she wrote. Still, their relationship visibly softened afterward.

They remained in a state where they pretended not to know each other in public, and would probably never chat as intimately as they once did in private. Even so, from afar, each kept track of how the other was doing.

Interestingly, Helen recommended the book Primeval and Other Times on her social media.

The book leans into animism, offering philosophical reflections on time and faith. It argues the world doesn’t revolve around humans alone — animals, plants, stones, even everyday objects all have life and perception. Humans are just part of all living things, with no right to claim ownership of existence.

The book breaks down human-centrism and rigid religious dogma, urging people to live in the moment and revere all life.

Lydia saw this post. She had no idea what the book was at first, so she naturally looked it up and read it. After finishing it, she commented that the book blasphemes God, leaving people who follow her blog both amused and exasperated.

Stubborn and set in her ways, she clearly couldn’t argue against the author’s insightful perspective, nor refute its literary deconstruction. She could only dismiss the book with simplistic black-and-white judgments.

In truth, the author never rejects God entirely. The story critiques religious authority while also depicting devout believers who witness divine miracles. Hailing from a deeply Catholic country, the author’s real objection is to religion that’s become institutionalized and corrupted by power — not faith itself. The writing stays gentle and understated throughout.

Helen knows full well how extreme Lydia’s religious views can be. As an official media host, she almost never posts anything related to religion to avoid unnecessary trouble. People suspect she genuinely loves this book, and that it’s also a gentle nudge directed at Lydia. Besides, her account is only visible to close friends anyway.

What’s even more telling is that for a while, Helen’s profile bio read: To be easily contented is already paradise.

Actually Lydia gets lost sometimes too, because the pastors she trusts can’t offer her wise enough answers.

Lydia put it this way:

"Over the past ten years, my pastors have constantly been caught up in one scandal or mishap. Every time, people outside mock me, saying, 'Your pastors are in trouble again.'

"Friends around me ask about it too, especially those from my previous career. I’ve always stood up for my pastors. I’ve even cut off ties with my own friends over them.

"Yet they never understand where I’m coming from. They keep saying I haven’t given up everything for the Lord. There’s never any reciprocation for all my devotion.

"Pastor J even said to me this Monday that I’m a woman clinging to worldly desires. How many worldly things have I actually given up for them?"

People see Lydia as someone who’s naive at heart, yet extremely stubborn and set in her ways.

Deep down she’s kind and emotional, a total idealist, and easily swept up by spiritual rhetoric.

Once she latches onto someone or a set of beliefs, she dives right in completely. No matter how others try to warn her, she just shuts it all out.

Another trait of Lydia’s is that she sees everything in black-and-white terms. She either trusts someone fully or rejects them entirely, with no middle ground at all. It’s only natural this kind of mindset makes her get stuck in her own views.

Yet people also see how selflessly she gives in everyday life.

Lydia went deep into remote mining country, staying with local farming families, sitting side by side with pneumoconiosis patients. Unfazed by dirt or hardship, she conducted field visits in person, distributed supplies, arranged medical treatment, and helped impoverished local children get an education.

She did all this with no media spotlight whatsoever, persisting for years, pouring her own money into the cause, and genuinely lifting up a great many underprivileged families.

Lydia has been married three times. Her third marriage was quiet and steady. She had no biological children of her own, yet all the children she has helped call her Mama Lydia.

Even when she’s living abroad in Ukraine, she still tunes into her hometown TV channel to follow what Helen is up to. She once commented, "Sometimes I think, in a way, she really has achieved immortality through time, her grace forever unchanged. Her shows are truly one of a kind."

Lydia also casually calls out Helen’s almost submissive attitude toward her mother. "I don’t even know how to put it into words. Word is she didn’t go to work today at all. She keeps letting her mother hold her back. When she was little, she skipped school because of her mom; now as an adult, she bails on work because of her mom. I’ve always thought she’d be truly free only if she could let go of that attachment to her mother."

Lydia also bluntly rants about Helen: "Her emotional intelligence is so hit or miss."

Lydia is about seven years older than Helen. Curiously enough, even in looks and demeanor, Helen comes across as more mature, older and more profound. Lydia, by contrast, carries an aura that’s aloof yet passionate, wild yet serene, with a distinctly girlish quality.

Lydia no longer keeps a blog, but their story goes on — their lives still stretch out ahead of them.

I’ll use fake names for everyone. There’s an incredibly talented, gorgeous woman called Lydia. She had a best friend named Helen, who’s just as brilliant and beautiful. Both of them are public figures. One’s a stage drama performer, the other a journalist. They were close friends for nine years back in their prime.

Lydia once wrote on her blog: “Helen’s the most genuine journalist I’ve ever met.”

Helen always spoke highly of Lydia too: “She’s such a loyal, stand-up person.”

Lydia’s a natural-born drama talent, with huge achievements in her field. She was stunningly beautiful when she was young, blew everyone away the second she stepped into the spotlight. She started off at an insanely high level. In one production, she completely outshone other lead actors. The audience couldn’t take their eyes off her, totally mesmerized.

But her straightforward personality held her back in the industry. This industry is super murky, full of unspoken rules and shady dealings. Lydia refused to play along with all the dirt. She spoke her mind without fear, never bothered being tactful at all. She even called out the industry’s hidden dirty secrets straight to people’s faces, rubbed a lot of powerful folks the wrong way.

After that, her career tanked completely, and all her work opportunities dried up. That’s when she hit a major turning point in life. She went to visit vulnerable and underprivileged groups, and that experience made her walk away entirely from her drama career.

She switched over to public welfare instead, set up her own charity fund, and helped countless people. She even works on the front lines herself, putting in way more effort than she ever did in acting. And honestly, the sense of fulfillment she gets from charity work is way bigger than anything drama ever gave her.

Later Lydia met a Mormon pastor, who was also a core member of the radical evangelical wing. He treated her really well at first, and Lydia was deeply touched. She thought she’d finally found a steady, reliable love.

After getting married, she moved to the US with him. Her husband read the Bible to her every day and took her to church nonstop. He basically pulled her away from her original Buddhist faith and pushed her straight into his own religious group.

She started spending time with loads of ultra-devout religious people through him. The people around him kept feeding her all kinds of extreme views — nothing like those open, normal religious groups at all. They proselytized like spammed religious content all over social media, mixed their resentment over current affairs with religious fanaticism, and even tied her charity work into that same fanatical mindset.

Lydia has always been the kind of person who acts on her feelings first, and her personality makes her super easily influenced by all this stuff. She was stuck in an empty patch back then, and this intense, fanatical religious faction just filled that void perfectly. Before she knew it, she put this radical group on a huge spiritual pedestal, convinced she was someone chosen by God — and nobody could talk her out of it.

Anyway, Lydia kept going further down the wrong path. Her takes on socially sensitive topics, public authority, and current affairs grew more and more extreme. Her remarks went way beyond what’s acceptable for an ordinary public figure.

By that time, Helen had become an official news anchor. Starting out as a girl from a grassroots background, she’d worked her way up step by step on her own. Her public image had to stay grounded and trustworthy, and the shows she hosted covered major modern social issues. Everyone knew she and Lydia were close friends, and Lydia’s reckless comments basically put Helen in an incredibly awkward spot.

Luckily, Lydia had already stepped away from performing and faded out of the public eye. She only proselytized obsessively among her private group of friends. She reached out to Helen many times, but Helen turned her down outright every time, and even tried to talk her out of diving too deep into that fanaticism. Still, Lydia wouldn’t listen. Their relationship was no longer as close and easy as it used to be, but they remained genuine friends all the same.

The incident took place after Helen came under immense work pressure. Her script was written by her team, yet flaws in the draft nearly escalated to a diplomatic level. As the only public spokesperson on camera, Helen became an easy target. Relevant authorities publicly held her accountable and demanded an apology. Even though she hadn’t written the script herself, she had no choice but to take the blame.

The program was temporarily suspended for internal review and overhaul. Internally, Helen had to face investigations from multiple administrative levels. Meanwhile, rumors spread rampantly online, leaving her under massive public pressure.

For a host who had established a solid footing within the system and was practically a household name, this uncertainty over her career was sheer mental torment. She had no idea when the controversy would blow over, nor whether she would ever be able to return in front of the camera again.

Just around this time, Lydia tried once again to share the gospel with Helen.

Helen brought up a friend who ended her own life years ago amid desperate living hardship. That loss left a deep mark on her and was a big reason she’d made up her mind to leave her hometown.

Helen said to Lydia, “She was such a wonderful person. Why did she have to go through so much pain? Where was God in all of this?”

And Lydia just said: “Yeah, she went to hell. Do you want that too?”

Helen said nothing in response.

A few hours later, Lydia realized she’d been blocked.

After that, Lydia only found out about Helen’s social media posts through mutual friends.

Based on the circumstances at the time, many people suspected that Helen’s superiors had spoken to her on multiple occasions, pressuring her to cut off all contact with Lydia. This is an inevitable unspoken rule within the system.

Holding her position, Helen trod carefully at every step. The slightest hint of trouble could undo more than a decade of her hard work. Lydia’s actions were like a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment for her. Helen still regarded Lydia as a friend back then, so she never cut off ties with her privately.

Yet Lydia paid no regard to Helen’s precarious situation and kept trying to preach to her. That was why Helen voiced a question ordinary people often ask: where is God when we endure suffering?

Lydia later said she acted out of genuine concern for Helen. From an outsider’s perspective, however, Lydia was deeply entrenched in an extremist religious sect that clung to the rigid belief that anyone who does not believe in God will go to hell.

To her, the words she blurted out came from a place of heartfelt care, yet they were completely divorced from reality, ignoring Helen’s raw pain in the moment. What sounded forth was nothing short of threatening religious coercion — far from genuine gospel outreach.

How would a person of genuine faith and wisdom have responded to Helen’s sincere question?

For one thing, they would never deny the harsh reality of suffering, nor speak disrespectfully of the deceased, let alone wound Helen’s feelings. If they were compassionate and wise Christian, they would first admit their own ignorance, instead of pretending to possess profound spiritual insight.

The Book of Job in the Bible tells a similar story: the righteous suffer for no reason, while God remains silent and gives no explanation for their suffering.

Job’s friends clung to the simplistic doctrine that "suffering must be punishment for sin". They tried to explain pain through rigid dogma and pass judgment on Job, only to be sternly rebuked by God.

This teaches us that true faith never dismisses or rationalizes suffering; instead, it stands in solidarity with those in pain and offers sincere companionship.

If they were compassionate and wise Buddhists, faced with Helen’s heartfelt question, they would never push the narrative that victims must have deserved their suffering, nor coldly resort to rigid karma theories. This runs entirely counter to the spirit of the Bodhisattva’s universal compassion for all living beings.

There is a well-known story in Buddhist scriptures. A woman lost her child and was overcome with grief. She held her little one’s cold body, going from place to place begging anyone to bring her child back to life. Everyone thought she had lost her mind. Eventually she came before the Buddha and begged him to save her child.

The Buddha said, “I can restore your child to life, but first you must go to a household where no one has ever died, and bring back a handful of mustard seeds from them.”

Overjoyed, the woman went door to door asking every family. One after another, people told her they had lost grandparents, parents, or children. She searched the entire village, yet not a single home had never known death.

As she wandered, she slowly loosened her hold on her child’s body. At last she understood the Buddha’s true meaning behind the request: death is neither punishment nor random misfortune, but an undeniable truth shared by all living things.

The Buddha could have simply lectured her with grand teachings about impermanence and the cycle of birth and death—truths they undoubtedly are. But he chose not to. Instead, he let her live through the reality of life’s impermanence, and the shared fate of all beings.

Just like the Buddha, when a Bodhisattva hears such questions, the first thing is to refrain from passing judgment on others.

They see suffering is not sin, and arise with boundless compassion, weeping for the departed.

In the end, the Bodhisattva would give Helen hope, telling her no one can casually judge where a soul goes after death. Her friend was a kind and good person in life, and all her good karma remains. The living can honor her by doing good deeds and praying for her, carrying on those seeds of goodness. Such blessings can guide her toward a bright realm.

Where there is love and remembrance, there dwell Bodhisattvas, God, and the Buddha alike.

This is how a Bodhisattva might answer:

“You ask where the Bodhisattva was back then?

According to Mahayana teachings, the moment your friend endured suffering, every thought that wished to comfort her was the Bodhisattva present.

Every tear shed for her was the Bodhisattva present. Every sincere attempt to understand her pain was the Bodhisattva present.

Bodhisattvas do not merely watch from high clouds. They take form in every person who tries to understand suffering.

The grief you feel for her right now — this sorrow itself is the awakening of Bodhicitta within your heart.”

We could take this line of reasoning further and imagine how devout Muslims might respond in such a situation, but I don’t know much about Islamic doctrine. I only have a very superficial understanding of Iranian history, mainly the core story of the Shia martyred sacred lineage, so I won’t speak casually about it.

Ultimately, Lydia’s biggest mistake was passing a final verdict on behalf of the divine—whether we call it God, the mind, awareness, the Dharma body, etc; it is all one and the same essence.

Manipulated by extremist groups, she lost basic empathy. In doing so, she not only went against Jesus’ teachings of love but also fell into what Buddhism calls arrogance: she thought she stood above others and fancied herself defending the divine. Blinded by extreme views, she failed to see that the most human response in that moment would have been simply to comfort and hold the other person.

There are many people just like Lydia. When faced with someone like Helen pouring out their pain, they only say the deceased reaped their own karmic retribution, that crying is useless, that one must accept karma and believe in God—or end up in hell too. To the listener, this only sounds like they deserved it, and you must resign yourself to fate. It leaves them feeling hopeless and furious, even resentful toward that faith. This only breeds hatred, which is completely contrary to the true spirit of religion.

In truth, anyone like Helen who asks “Where is God?” is longing for a world that ought to hold justice and love. And that longing in itself is the very beginning of faith.

Actually, none of what I said earlier is the real point. What I want to talk about is what happened afterward.

Lydia and Helen drifted into a nearly two-year stretch where they had no contact at all. At one point, someone asked Helen about Lydia, and she simply replied, in a calm, detached tone, that she didn’t know her. That incident deeply stung Lydia.

Later, Lydia anonymously wrote down the entire story of her relationship with Helen. Her writing was raw, vivid, and beautifully crafted, filled with that tangled tone of love and resentment—feelings she didn’t even fully recognize in herself at the time. Eventually, people figured out the anonymous blog was written by Lydia herself. She kept denying it, yet continued writing all the same.

People ended up both gossiping about her and admiring her writing. They were stunned that besides her talent in drama, she also had such an innate gift for words, and they couldn’t help feeling sorry for everything she’d been through.

These days, Lydia is no longer caught up in religious fanaticism. She has gone back to dedicating herself to charity, living a low-key itinerant life with her third husband, far removed from the extremist community that once influenced her. The people around her now are mostly ordinary Christians. Still, there are inevitably things about them that strike people as odd—for instance, they truly believe someone like Helen will go to hell just because she doesn't believe God. This alone prompted Lydia to openly lay bare her true inner thoughts.