Using Depression as the Path to Enlightenment

by Gelongma Losang Drimay

In our final class of Transforming Problems, we looked at some of the mysteries of the world of Harry Potter, dementors - "Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you." - and patronuses - "a kind of positive force, and for the wizard who can conjure one, it works something like a shield," as allegories for negative states of mind and how to protect oneself from them, namely by learning to generate powerful positive states even under very gloomy and fearful circumstances.


When we feel depressed it can be like a dementor attack, feeling like you'll never be cheerful again, as they say. Everything seems cold and dark and threatening and we lose confidence in ourselves. Harry Potter and his classmates learn how to protect themselves from dementors by creating their own patronus, a protective force in the form of a totem animal. In order to conjure a patronus, one must generate a very powerful positive emotion, not just happy--Harry is instructed--but also powerful. Can you remember feeling like that at some point in your life? Bring the whole memory back into your being. Bookmark that feeling so that you'll be able to find it again when you get an attack of the blues.

What would Buddhism say is the most powerful positive emotion? Probably bodhichitta, but that is a piece of jargon that needs unpacking. I think it includes: faith that there is a state of transcendence--something beyond this humdrum existence; that you have the possibility of achieving that state; a genuine openness to other people--that you love and respect them; a wish to make your life meaningful, especially for others.

Here is some advice from a qualified master, Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Maybe you wake up in the morning feeling depressed for no particular reason. If you can't solve this problem through meditation it might help to just go to sleep, or go somewhere to rest, or take a nice drive somewhere. Otherwise you'll get upset, disturbing the people around you as well. When you're angry, all sorts of bad, uncontrolled thoughts can come into your mind.
If you're depressed due to a certain situation then you can apply the meditation techniques that relate to that particular set of conditions. But if you just feel sad for no particular reason, it's best to practice bodhicitta.

from Transforming Depression on www.lamayeshe.com

Rinpoche then goes on to explain the meditation on Tong-len, taking on the suffering of others and sending them all your happiness and goodness.

On the Online Advice Book, Rinpoche gives several other suggestions to specific people who wrote to him asking for advice about dealing with depression, for example:

• read lam-rim books, not heavy philosophy, and not just any Dharma book, but lam-rim books
• keep reciting mantras, such as OM MANI PADME HUNG
• recite sutras, such as Arya Sanghata Sutra and the Golden Light Sutra
• do the Vajrasattva purification with the remedy of the four opponent powers
• practice rejoicing - rejoicing that you have the depression and rejoicing systematically in every kind of goodness of yourself and others
• and again, do the meditation tong-len or general bodhichitta practice

Using depression as the path means taking that depression as the very material with which to develop the causes for enlightenment. In this way, you are lucky to have the depression. If you didn't have the depression, you wouldn't be looking around for ways to practice Dharma. Now that you have it, you can use it to develop understanding about samsara, about karmic cause and effect, about the nature of the mind, compassion, the need for liberation and buddhahood. If you use your depression as material for your tong-len practice, it becomes a cause of your complete, perfect enlightenment. When you become a buddha, you'll be able to look back on this and see it as one of the many things that led you to enlightenment.

Do a rough estimate of how many people in your neighborhood, town, county, state must be experiencing depression right now. Ten rows of chairs with ten chairs going across in each row makes a hundred, to give you a quick sense of what a hundred people would look like. Imagine a hundred depressed people sitting there in front of you. Choose: one depressed person or a hundred depressed people? One is better. Wish very strongly to take their depression from them. (See elsewhere for exact tong-len visualizations and techniques.) Then send them all your happiness and potential for happiness. They receive it. Now congratulate yourself that you did it. Feel glad. Repeat for several days or weeks, however long it takes.

Let someone know if you sense that you are spiraling down. Please be happy.