Los Angeles has a thriving gang scene. Often these overrun areas coincide with locations for new Buddhist temples. As immigrants arrive, they tend to pool in more affordable and very ethnic areas. Those areas are made "affordable" by their proximity to gangs, which lower property values dramatically. For the most part gang members only oppose each other. But any threat to their money-making endeavors can result in sudden violence.
Far from protecting citizens, Los Angeles police (LAPD) allow the situation to fester then roar in like stormtroopers. Their fascist tactics and insignia get mimicked by gang members, who must often become affiliated with "gangs" (any group that seem cohesive). Individual crime is apparently acceptable and tolerated. But as soon as it's organized -- say by two individuals wearing jeans and white tee shirts -- it becomes a gang outfit and penalties are severely enhanced.
In this unfair and intolerant environment, people act out every abuse and trauma associated with poverty in a marginalized ghetto or region of the city, ending in a patchwork of no-go zones and a city motto that runs: "Welcome to Los Angeles; now go home." The trauma experience, a form of PTSD, from childhood abuse, police abuse, drug abuse, poverty, poor diet, and constant stress leads to a condition described by the ancients as "soul loss." This does not posit that there is a soul. The Buddha revealed the radical truth that there is no abiding "soul" or "ego" (anatta). Rather, constantly changing psychological and emotional aspects taken to be an atta are described as a real self or personality.
All our problems begin by misidentifying with this empty, impersonal psychophysical process. It's a normal and common response to Samsaric experience. The long term ramifications are having to retrieve, reintegrate, and liberate this "self" to become free of suffering (dukkha). That ultimate liberation is called nirvana.
Dr. Hank Wesselman discusses the three main causes of spiritual illness from the book Spirit Medicine co-written with his wife Jill Kuykendall.
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