"True Freedom" published by the Buddhadhamma Foundation in Thailand
Beyond Boredom and Depression
by Ajahn Jagaro
Beyond boredom and depression sounds like an interesting topic. Of
course, you never know what is going to be beyond it - it could get
even worse - but I'm sure that most people expect it to mean going
beyond in the sense of getting better.
This talk will be mainly a reflection on very common human experiences
that we have. Boredom, in particular, is an experience common to all
people, but I think it is becoming much more commonly experienced
amongst people in modern society, especially young people. Depression
is also a problem for many people, so I thought this topic would
provide the basis for some interesting reflections for you. I certainly
don't want to put myself forward as an expert. I'm not a psychiatrist
or psychologist, so my definitions won't be definitions in the medical
sense, but rather statements by a human being who has observed and
contemplated feelings, emotions and states of mind, and has tried to
understand these states and how to deal with them.
Boredom and depression are actually two quite different states. Boredom
is a relatively simple state of mind. The state of depression is quite
a different matter, a much more complicated emotional area. It is much
more difficult to deal with, both in discussion and in practical
treatment. Nevertheless, I will try to deal with both in this short
talk.
Boredom simply means that we are not interested. The situation, the way
things are, is of no interest to us. We say we are bored, or most often
we say, "This is boring. This is a really boring place. This is a
boring movie. This is a boring talk. This is a boring book. That is a
boring person"... and so on. We keep pointing out there. The quality of
being boring is seen as something external. This is the first thing I
would like to challenge. I disagree with this statement that the
quality of being boring is something external. "There is nothing
boring" is a correct statement, as is "everything is equally boring."
They are both correct statements in accordance with reality.
Boredom results from nothing other than one's own mind. There is
nothing boring, but there are bored minds. The mind
is bored.
This
is very important for us to appreciate and consider, otherwise we will
always be saying, "This is a boring place, something is wrong with the
place. This is a boring book, something is wrong with the book, let's
get another one. Fix up the boring book by throwing it out and getting
another, more interesting one." That is how we approach life. We treat
boredom by changing the circumstances, trying to make them more
interesting. We never really address the true cause or essence of the
problem.
Boredom is subjective
To illustrate this I will relate an experience of mine. As
I've
sometimes mentioned, I am fascinated by science fiction. I was watching
a science fiction movie on television, and I was really enthralled. The
movie was so stimulating, the adrenaline was flowing and I was fully
awake and alert. Then I noticed the man sitting next to me - he was
dozing off! How could he possibly fall asleep? The movie was so
interesting, but he was bored. That is a very interesting thing, isn't
it? It shows that it is not the object that is boring, but the mind
that is bored, the mind is not interested in that situation, that
condition, that experience. Boredom is a very subjective experience, a
very personal state. You will find that this is true of most things.
You read a book and find it interesting, but someone else can't get
past the first page. "It's so boring, how can you possibly read this?"
So what is boredom? It is a subjective experience that occurs when the
mind is not interested or stimulated, and doesn't like what the present
contains. You want something else, you are bored. You say, "This is
boring. This is not boring", but it would be more correct to say, "The
mind is bored." The mind is bored because it doesn't want this
situation, it wants something else, it wants to be somewhere else; it
wants to have something else, to experience something else, someone
else, somewhere else...
It is very important to understand that the source of boredom is within
your own mind. The consequence of not understanding this is that you
will forever be trying to avoid boredom by finding new situations and
new, exciting experiences.
But where do you think that is going to take you? Have you ever noticed
that with today's youth, fifteen and sixteen-year-olds, everything is
so boring? If it lasts longer than five minutes it's boring. It must be
hell being a teacher, because it is so hard to keep the students'
attention. Why should they have to pay attention for fifty minutes and
learn something? You have to find all sorts of gimmicks, tricks, games
and other ways of entertaining them so that they will last the fifty
minutes.
Teachers tell me this when they invite me to give a talk at a school.
They say that the students' attention span is very short and not to be
upset if they become restless and start to talk as they are always like
that. It's not a very nice thing to have to say about your students, is
it? Actually, when I go to give a talk, the students are always quite
interested because I'm so weird-looking. The teachers always ask, "Are
you going to bring something to show them in order to keep their
interest?" I don't have to take anything except myself, that's enough.
I sit there looking so strange in this garb, with no hair, talking
about something so unusual, that they generally do retain an interest
and pay attention. Fifty minutes isn't too long for them in that
situation, but for normal lessons, Social Studies, Arithmetic, English,
Chemistry and so on, it is very hard for them to last fifty minutes. I
think they are trying to reduce the periods to only thirty minutes.
Why are they so easily bored? Have you ever considered what they are
fed on? Have you ever considered the speed and the greed of the sensory
stimulation that youth is fed on? Watch television. I don't watch
television very often, but when I do, I feel I am being bombarded
because it is so fast. The amount of sight, colour and sound,
particularly in the advertisements, flashing on, bombarding, is so
fast. So much is happening in thirty seconds. Do you know how much is
compacted into thirty seconds? You are flung through the air, surfing
on the waves - all in thirty seconds! The movies are also very fast, a
kind of fast lane experience; very exciting and sensational, and
compacted into such a short time. So when students have to sit
listening to someone talking about chemical reaction, they get utterly
bored. Just the thought of doing something that takes an hour is so
boring. They are simply not used to the slower pace because the sensory
stimulation of the present age supplies so much so quickly.
When you wake up in the morning and put on the radio you can hear what
is happening all over the world. In ten minutes you know what has
happened in the last twenty-four hours. How many channels can you get
on television? I don't know, but with this new-age television so much
is available. And music! When you put on the radio there is so much
music, and it's so fast, with such high energy.
All this simply means that you start to become jaded, your senses
become dull. Because there is so much stimulation the senses cannot
remain sensitive, otherwise it would be overwhelming. For me, watching
television is overwhelming. I'm tired after half an hour because the
sensory stimulation is so intense. To watch television regularly you
have to become less sensitive. The result of this is that it takes a
lot more to stimulate the same reactions, to stimulate the same
interest. You need ever more and more stimulation to generate interest,
excitement, and the buzz of life.
To illustrate this point I draw your attention to what you take to be
ordinary. You go home; you've got a television, a radio and a car.
You're going to drive home or perhaps you'll go on the bus, train or
tram. You don't think it is anything special, do you? It's pretty
ordinary - a boring ride on a tram. At home you open up the
refrigerator; you've got cold drinks, fruit. You flick a switch and a
light comes on. You go to the toilet, flush, and it flushes. Turn on a
tap - water comes out, hot and cold. It is all very ordinary isn't it,
and not very interesting.
Now imagine a man from say, one hundred years ago, in the same
situation - his eyes would be popping out of his head: "Look at that!
What's that? A car! And it goes, you can drive it! A television, a
refrigerator, electricity... fantastic, magical!" It is magical. Flick
on a switch and lights go on. You don't even have to get up now, just
sit down and flick switches. That's magical; sit down, flick a switch
and the television, the video, or the stereo go on. You can switch on
so many things from your seat. You can drive home, flick a switch and
the door opens like magic!
People who weren't used to this sort of situation would find it
incredibly fascinating - indeed overwhelming. They wouldn't be the
slightest bit bored. They probably wouldn't be able to sleep due to the
excitement. Imagine them walking through your house: they would be so
excited at all the gadgetry, all the things you've got in your house,
they wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. Do you think they would be
bored? Is your house boring? How many times have you felt bored stiff
in your own house? The fact is, most people do feel bored quite often.
The point is that it is not necessarily the situation which is boring,
but the state of mind which finds it ordinary, no longer stimulating,
no longer interesting to know. The situation doesn't excite, it doesn't
arouse any sort of interest in us, so we go into a passive state of
boredom, thinking, 'I want something else, I want to experience
something else, I want to be somewhere else. I am bored.' This is a
very common experience.
The way we normally treat this is by finding new experiences, seeking
something new. That is what we are being encouraged to do, to get
something new. You are bored, so you go out and get something new: new
dress, new wardrobe, new car, new video, new movie. In order not to be
bored you just keep on getting something new.
What is this process and where is it leading us? What is it doing to
us? It is making us less and less sensitive, less and less content, and
less and less able to feel the zest of being alive, except in rare
situations when we find something new, when we go somewhere new. The
result of this is that most of life becomes boring. More and more of
life is going to become boring if you continue to follow this trend.
Rich people, people who have been everywhere and done everything, quite
often feel bored. It is so hard to find something that will stimulate
them. Once you have eaten every type of cuisine, once you have been to
every restaurant in Melbourne, it must be very boring. "Where can I go
to have an interesting night out?" Once you have seen every
programme... "Oh dear, nothing interesting on television. So boring."
You become more and more bored because you've become more and more
jaded, more and more insensitive, dependent on more and more
stimulation. The youth of today suffer from this. It is not only the
youth, but the youth are going to feel it more, because they are being
raised with such a high degree of stimulation.
People quite often ask me about the monk's life, especially when I give
talks to students at schools. They ask me what I do. Well, we get up at
four in the morning and we meditate.
"What do you do when you meditate?"
"Oh, we just sit still with our eyes closed."
"What do you do after that?"
"We have a cup of tea and then we do some chores, sweeping and cleaning
up, we eat one meal a day, read a little in the afternoon."
"What about sports?"
"Oh no, we don't play sports."
"Entertainment?"
"No, we're not allowed to have entertainment, no singing, no dancing,
no music, no television, no movies..."
"No movies! Don't you get bored? Isn't it really boring? Do you just
sit there all day in the forest? Don't you have parties?"
"No, no parties."
"Isn't it boring? Don't you get bored?"
"Oh yes, it is very boring conventionally speaking, completely boring.
It's designed to be completely boring, a perfectly boring life - until
you become a teacher, then you don't have time to get bored,
unfortunately."
Do monks get bored? Certainly, everyone who comes to stay at the
monastery gets thoroughly bored, and what happens? Do we play music for
them, or take them out to the movies to get rid of the boredom? No.
Why? Boredom is a state of mind, and it is very important for human
beings to understand their minds. You don't need to find distractions
in order to get beyond boredom. If you understand what boredom is, you
need no longer be troubled by it. The source of boredom is in the
heart, in the mind, in that sense of wanting something else, needing
something else, wanting something new. This is the thirst that in
Buddhism we call tanha, craving.
What is the most desirable thing in the world?
One type of craving is for sensory stimulation, and that
thirst can
never be fulfilled. What, for you, is the most desirable thing? It is
very subjective, everyone will have a different answer. I was once
returning from Thailand on my way to Bangkok airport and, as is well
known, Bangkok has terrible traffic jams. We were caught on a highway
in a car and I had a severe case of diarrhoea. There had been an
accident and we were stuck chock-a-block. The road was full of cars and
there was nowhere to go, no bushes, nothing - I was stuck there. It was
a very unpleasant and tense situation, thinking of what could happen. I
can tell you in all honesty the most desirable thing to me at that time
was to get to a toilet. That was the most desirable thing in the world
to me at that moment, the one thing I really wanted. Everything else
had gone out of my mind.
So the most desirable thing is the one thing that you want now. But of
course, it is never the same for very long, it changes. No matter what
you want, once you get it you don't want it anymore. You want something
else. Even if you don't get it, the desire for it may last a bit
longer, but soon you will want something else.
Craving is never faithful to its object. It always wants something
else, that is its nature, that's what craving is - thirst for something
else, never for what you have already. That is why you get bored with
anything and everything. It doesn't matter how interesting or
fascinating it is, you will get bored with it, just as you got bored
with driving a car, with television, with movies, with refrigerators,
even with electricity. You even get bored with a talk on Buddhism. You
get fed up with it, bored. Flying in an aeroplane becomes boring. If
you were to get an opportunity to fly a rocket to the moon every week
you would get bored with that, too. Craving knows faithfulness to no
object. It always wants something new.
You will become bored with everything, because the mind has the disease
that leads to boredom. The disease is craving. Try to recognise that
this becomes a kind of addiction. Sensory stimulation is just like a
drug: the more you have, the more you need. You smoke only ten
cigarettes, you soon need twenty. You drink only two cups of coffee,
soon enough you need four. I can speak from experience - I like coffee.
Yes, you get used to it, then you need a bit more to receive the same
stimulation. It is the same with everything.
As long as we function from craving, from thirst for stimulation, we
will always experience boredom and we will always need something else.
If this is not understood, not addressed carefully and wisely, we will
become less and less contented, less and less sensitive, less and less
able to enjoy life, and more bored.
Have you ever considered that perhaps we need not be bored with any
situation? If we have some understanding and control over the mind,
maybe we don't have to be bored. Without changing the conditions, we
can overcome boredom. Could it be just a matter of changing our
attitude? Could it be simply seeing the way things are now and being
able to accept them as they are, without being overwhelmed by an
excessive thirst for something new? Then, in that moment of accepting
the ways things are now, we can experience fulfillment and peace.
Everything is interesting if you look closely and open your mind to it.
There is fascination in the smallest thing: a grain of sand, a flower,
the light of the sun through the trees, the stars at night, in the
silence or in the noise. It can all be interesting once the mind
arouses that interest. Notice that the mind arouses interest rather
than arousing craving for something else. The mind can generate
interest with equal ease. If you generate the interest, you have the
gratification of being interested. In other words you feel alive, you
feel animated, you may even feel excited.
I always talk about this when teaching meditation, because one of the
techniques we teach is concentration on the breath. Often people
comment on how boring and how un-spiritual such meditation is. At a
talk in Perth entitled "Introduction to Buddhist Meditation", I was
teaching meditation on the breath. At the end of the talk, one woman
said, "Why don't you teach a more spiritual meditation?" So I thought I
would answer in a way that would lead to a follow-up question. I said,
"Oh but the breath is the most spiritual thing there is." She replied,
"Oh, really." and didn't ask anything else, which was quite
disappointing.
She just took it for granted, but the breath can be very spiritual. It
can be very interesting, even enlightening. If you arouse the interest,
it is the most interesting thing there is. As you arouse interest and
your attention becomes focused and sustained, you can experience
rapture, joy and bliss. These things arise from the intense interest of
the mind, which is independent of its object. It is something that
arises in your mind and you can generate it. A neutral object such as
the breath can give you the bliss, the rapture, the experience of joy
and happiness that the most fascinating sensory experience can no
longer give you.
Getting beyond boredom
So, how to get beyond boredom? It requires development of this
inner
resource, the ability to generate energy, the ability to arouse
interest within one's own mind and not fall victim to the obsessive
craving for something else.
It is always something else, someone else, somewhere else; never now,
never this. You may be eating a marvelous meal, delicious cuisine, but
already you are thinking about the movie you are going to go to
afterwards. You go to a park with beautiful flowers and you look at
them. At first you are struck by the colours and shapes, but within a
few moments you are thinking about something else. How short our
attention span is: beautiful things only hold our attention for a few
moments. What hope does the ordinary object have of interesting us?
We need to break away from this obsessive craving for something new. It
is just a habit, that's all it is; just a habit, a conditioned reaction
of the mind. It can change, we can break that habit. We can arouse
interest in whatever we wish to be interested in. We can arouse and
sustain attention. That is one of the basic practices of meditation and
concentration. We train ourselves to arouse interest, to sustain
interest, to sustain attention on something, usually the most ordinary
thing.
That is why in Buddhist meditation we do not give you fascinating
meditation objects. What good is that? You develop nothing from within
yourself. No doubt you could concentrate on an exciting new movie. Most
of us could sit quite absorbed in a movie for two hours without even
noticing the time. But you'd get nothing from it except a cluttered
head, a bunch of memories, and no resource of independence. However, if
you can arouse that interest, that intensity of attention, even for
five minutes, on a neutral object such as the breath, you then have
something very powerful within you. You have a resource which can serve
you well and bring great joy and happiness to your life. This is very
important. Boredom is a state of mind which occurs when the mind has
lost the ability to be interested, to be sensitive, to be contented
with what is.
Relatively speaking there are situations that are more stimulating than
others. I don't deny that, but the source of the problem is within. If
we continue along this path of seeking more and more stimulation, it
will become more and more difficult for us to find that sense of joy,
or rapture, that sense of being alive. We will instead become more and
more bored and jaded.
The way to recondition the mind is to change our attitude. Why is the
life of a monk designed to be so simple that people often experience
boredom? That is good, because then they will understand boredom, see
the source of boredom and get over it; not by changing the conditions,
but by changing the attitude in the mind and the quality of mind. It is
very important for us to understand this. Once we understand this we
can avoid being bored even in ordinary situations. At the very least we
can be contented and peaceful.
Contentment means to be peaceful, not to be irresponsible, lazy and
indifferent. Contentment in Buddhism means to be at peace with the way
things are, perfectly sensitive and open, whether the conditions are
stimulating, unstimulating, pleasant or unpleasant.
This is a training of the mind and meditation is a tool to help that
training. We have to take charge of our own minds. The addictive power
of craving manipulates us into continually thinking, "I don't like
this. I need something else." That is a creation of the mind. Wrong
view and wrong thought create those states of hunger and need. We can
change that if we take hold of the mind, if we develop sufficient
control of our thinking. Thinking is nothing extraordinary, you can
control it. Just to be able to control thought and say "No. stop." Just
stop and be peaceful, you can do it. Stop proliferating and thirsting
for something else. Take an interest in this, then there will no longer
be boredom. There will be peace and even intense interest.
Once you understand what I'm driving at, just to change in attitude
will help a lot. Just a simple shift in attitude, realising that you
don't have to be continually stimulated by something new in order to be
happy, you can find peace and contentment right now.
Understanding depression
Depression is more complicated than boredom. When you are
bored you may
often become depressed. Depression is not associated with wanting
something different, unlike boredom which is very straightforward - I
don't like this, I want something else. Depression is a heavier
emotional feeling, usually associated with sadness and a sense of
despair. It's like a dark and heavy weight; all seems dark and
hopeless, there is not much light, not much energy.
When you are bored you usually have energy: "Well I'll just go and do
something else." You don't want to be bored and you have the energy to
do something about it. But when you are depressed you haven't got the
energy, you've lost hope; it's so overwhelming you just feel like
sinking.
Depression can arise due to many factors. Emotional difficulties, such
as a failure, or a relationship that goes sour, or strong criticism
from people you love and respect, can easily bring you into a state of
depression. Instead of reacting with anger you begin to think perhaps
they are right. Depression is a very low feeling, a sense of
hopelessness.
If you are chronically bored and you know there is nothing else for you
to do, then not only are you bored, you are also depressed, because you
have lost hope. So depression is quite a heavy burden. It takes away
the energy of life. It takes away hope and zest; it is a dark, low
feeling. Different degrees of depression are quite a common experience
for all of us, for some more so than others.
What do you do about it? Obviously, because it is a complicated state,
the answer is not so simple. There are many aspects to it, but this
evening I would like to offer some techniques gleaned from one of the
Buddha's teachings which can be used for dealing with depression.
One of the teachings that the Buddha gave is called the Seven Factors
of Enlightenment. These are seven spiritual qualities that are
cultivated in order to move towards enlightenment. Although the Seven
Factors of Enlightenment are fairly special qualities which are
developed along the path to Enlightenment, I would like to talk about
them in a more mundane sense, as qualities that can be used effectively
in dealing with depression. My definitions of these factors may not
convey the full extent of their profundity, but you may find them
useful in your everyday lives.
There are seven factors, but this evening I will only speak about
three, because these three have the effect of uplifting, energising and
exhilarating the mind, and thus are a very good antidote for depression.
The first of the three factors is investigation of Dhamma, or you can
say, investigation of reality, of nature, in accordance with the way
life is. For example, you are in a position where somebody starts
criticising you and pointing out all your faults. If enough people
criticise you, you begin to believe them. Once you start believing it
you can get depressed. If you don't believe it you just fight back:
"What are you talking about, I know better than you. Who are you to
tell me?" You are not depressed, you are angry, fighting back. But as
soon as the possibility that they are right and you are wrong starts
creeping into your consciousness, you can get depressed. You start
thinking about it: "Yes, I really made a mess of everything. I'm really
hopeless." And it really is hopeless. What can you do now? It's too
late.
Seeing the way things are
This sort of attitude and response is due to our not
understanding the
nature of life. What is the nature of life? Life entails praise and
blame. People will always be praised, they will always be blamed.
You'll always get some praise, you'll always get some criticism,
regardless of where you go or who you are. Wherever you go, whoever you
are, you never escape it. Listen to what they say about God - some
praise him, some curse him. Even the President of the United States -
some are shouting his praise and some are ridiculing him. Everybody is
the same, even a Buddhist monk. When I'm with Buddhist people they are
usually very nice to me. When I'm amongst some other people or when I'm
walking around the streets they don't say very nice things. Praise and
blame, it is the way of the world. No one can escape that.
Investigating your own nature is like investigating the nature of life.
You're not perfect... well, what do you know, you aren't perfect! Have
you ever understood that? You are not perfect, you do make mistakes.
You don't always see everything totally and clearly. Sometimes you
misjudge, sometimes you make real blunders. Yes, you are human,
everybody makes mistakes.
Some people, especially Buddhist people, think the Buddha never made a
mistake in his whole life, because he is supposed to be the Buddha,
omniscient and omnipotent. But one particular incident recorded in the
scriptures has always intrigued me and made me feel much better when I
do make mistakes.
On this occasion the Buddha was teaching a great congregation of monks.
The meditation he was teaching wasn't mindfulness of the breath. It was
something much more specific. One of the meditation techniques which
the Buddha taught especially to monks and nuns is the contemplation of
the body. Sometimes it is called the reflection on the repulsiveness or
unattractiveness of the body. In this meditation you mentally dissect
the body and see it as an unattractive object, as a bag of skin full of
various impurities. Beginning with the hair of the head, the
contemplation goes right through the body, describing all the things
inside. It sounds pretty gruesome when you start dissecting it. The
Buddha gave the monks this very good meditation, exhorting them to
practise diligently while he went off on retreat, leaving instructions
that nobody was to disturb him except the monk who was to bring his
food once a day.
The Buddha left the monks to their meditation. They did meditate, and
very diligently. They meditated and meditated on the repulsiveness of
the body, and many of them started to develop a very great disgust for
the body, this bag of filth: "Oh, when will I be free of this body?
When will I be free of this filth?" This was the view they developed.
Actually it was wrong view, it is not the true objective of this
meditation technique, but without guidance, this can happen. It is just
a change in perception, from beautiful to ugly. They saw the body as
disgusting.
Some of them were so disgusted with the body that they went to a hermit
who was leading some kind of meditative life. They said to him, "Listen
friend, we are thoroughly disgusted with this body, why don't you do us
a favour and kill us. If you kill us, you can have our robes and our
bowls." He was a bit simple: "Are you sure that would be a good thing?
Would that be of value to you?" "Oh yes," they replied. "that's really
what we want." So the hermit picked up his sword and killed the young
monks, thinking that he had done a good thing.
However, when he thought on what he had done, reflecting that killing a
human being was a bad thing to do, he began to feel regret. As he went
to the river to wash the blood off his sword he was full of remorse. At
that moment, as the story relates, Mara(*) manifested in the water as
some kind of deity and spoke to him, "Oh no, great sir, that was a most
noble and meritorious act of yours, in that you helped those young men
to cross over the ocean of samsara and become liberated. That was an
act of great merit from which you will derive great benefit, both now
and in the future." He became quite excited about making great merit.
Thinking he should make more, he went to the monastery of the Buddhist
monks, brandishing his sword and going from room to room, calling, "Who
wants to be led across? Who wants to be liberated?"
(*) Mara, the Buddhist personification of all that obstructs the
development of goodness.
The story states that in one day he chopped off many heads and killed
dozens, hundreds of monks. All this was supposed to have happened
without anyone reporting the matter to the Buddha. After the time set
aside for his retreat, the Buddha came out of the forest, and as he
walked through the monastery with his attendant Ananda, he looked
around: "Ananda what has happened? Why are there so few monks here?
Where have all the monks gone, Ananda?" Only then did Ananda tell the
Buddha what had happened.
The Buddha then convened the monks and said, "Monks, you had better
change the meditation." He then proceeded to instruct them in the
meditation on inhalation and exhalation, mindfulness of the breathing.
The Buddha stated that this meditation was much better and gave a whole
list of its advantages.
Now whether this story is an historical event or not, I do not know.
However, since it is part of the scriptures it indicates that even the
Buddha could have misjudged the results of his teaching. I have never
had such a thing happen to me, but I think I would be very upset if I
taught something and it resulted in such a way. So from this story, it
seems that even the Buddha could have made what we would,
conventionally speaking, call a mistake.
Well what do you know - so you do make mistakes! Perhaps the way that
you brought up your children... maybe you were not the perfect father,
the perfect mother. Well, you are not perfect, you are not omnipotent,
not omniscient.
Investigation of Dhamma means investigating the nature of life; life is
like that, it is dualistic. There is praise, there is blame, there is
success, there is failure. We don't know everything, we are limited in
our view, we make mistakes. Yes, that is the way it is. The
understanding of the way things are makes us begin to appreciate the
way nature works and helps to raise us up. Then we don't feel so
downtrodden when things go wrong, when we fall, when we are criticised
or are sick.
These days if you are told that you have contracted cancer, not only
have you got a physical problem, but you start feeling depressed and
guilty: "Oh cancer, that's caused by tension and stress - there must be
something wrong with me mentally." So what? You're not perfect, you
aren't enlightened. We do make mistakes in life.
This understanding of the way things are, appreciating the state of
nature, understanding our own mortality and our limitations, means that
we won't be so oppressed or depressed by situations. This is the way
the world is. As soon as you realise that you are not perfect, that you
do make mistakes, a burden has been thrown off. This results from
having an appreciation of the way things are, from investigating,
looking closely at the nature of life and our humanity, the nature of
the body and mind.
This is an example of what in Buddhism we call investigation of Dhamma,
the first of three important factors that can help overcome depression.
The second factor is energy, arousing energy, which is similar to
arousing interest. We have to be able to arouse energy in our lives, we
can't just wait for energy to flow into us, just as we can't wait for
something to interest us. We have to be able to arouse energy
ourselves. Get up and do something. What do you do if you are
depressed? Get up, arouse the energy to try something. Do something
good. Do some gardening, go for a walk, get some fresh air and
sunshine, go and look at the trees and listen to the birds. If you just
arouse a little bit of energy, it will help you to generate a bit more
energy, and that uplifts you and gets you out of the depression.
Anything that is energising can help. Don't just wait for life to put
energy into you, you've got to put energy into life; generate it from
within yourself.
In the same way that I was saying that we can arouse interest during
meditation, we can arouse energy in our daily lives. If we are
depressed we can arouse energy. Do something for someone else. Go to
the Buddhist Society and do something for them. Do something for the
community, because when you generate the energy to do something for
someone else, something good, the depression very rapidly becomes less
oppressive.
The next factor is rapture or joy. When we arouse energy we arouse
interest. In meditation, when we arouse interest in the object, the
mind becomes full of joy as a result of the concentration. So too, if
we arouse energy and interest in our lives, doing that which is good,
that which is of service, the heart experiences joy. You feel joyful
when you do good things. When your life is of service you feel
fulfilled.
It's amazing, isn't it? When you are completely selfish we feel utterly
empty and miserable; when we are living our life so that it is of
service to others, cultivating goodness in its various forms, strangely
enough we feel fulfilled, we feel joyful, we feel self-respect.
Arousing energy to get up and do something good makes you feel joyful
because that uplifts the mind. It is not like the happiness of
gratification. Happiness in its ordinary sense sometimes makes you feel
down, especially when it is associated with unskilful, unwholesome
things. You don't feel joyful. You may feel excitement and pleasure,
but not joy. Joy in this sense is always associated with goodness,
because it makes the mind feel light. There is self-respect and joy in
the heart.
These three qualities can help you deal with or rise above depression.
Investigate, really get to know the way life is. A lot of depression is
due to the fact that we just don't appreciate, or haven't come to terms
with, the nature of mortality, the nature of our lives. The more we
understand that, the less we suffer from depression. That is the way
things are. If we can arouse energy to do that which is good, it brings
joy. This can be done in our everyday lives and it can be done in
meditation. If you do it in meditation the mind will no longer be
depressed. If you do it in everyday living you will not be afflicted by
depression.
