Advice on Depression

My most dear one,
We have not seen each other for many years. I felt very much this time to make an offering of the three long life deities, Buddha Amitayus, Namgyälma and White Tara, which are so powerful for purifying negative karmas and obscurations, as well as for long life.

Also, if you can, read the Long Life Sutra. [Find links to Amitayus Long Life Sutra in the FPMT Catalogue.] This will be very helpful to purify all negative karmas and obscurations and so to be free from depression. To be free from depression you have to be free from its cause. In terms of other sufferings of samsara, depression is like one atom from a house. Purifying the cause of depression can help.

Reciting this sutra purifies mountains of negative karma. You get the benefit of having read all the Buddha’s teachings and you will achieve all happiness—not only the temporary happiness of this life but also of future lives, and not just for one life but for hundreds, thousands, billions of lives until you are free from samsara. Not only will you achieve temporary happiness, but also ultimate happiness, liberation from the oceans of samsaric suffering and the peerless happiness of full enlightenment—the cessation of all the mistakes of the mind and completion of all the realizations. You can then free all the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras and intermediate state beings and bring them to full enlightenment. It helps for that.

Reciting the Long Life Sutra or the Medicine Buddha mantra and names or the Chenrezig mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM, is like an atomic bomb to be free from suffering and achieve all the happiness—especially OM MANI PADME HUM, which helps us to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. We can be born in the pure land of Chenrezig and from there we will definitely not be reborn in the lower realms, as a hell, hungry ghost or animal.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva, the Nalanda pandit and great holy being:

Why be unhappy about something
If it can be remedied?
And what is the use of being unhappy about something
If it cannot be remedied?
– (Bodhicaryavatara, Ch. 6, v. 10)

That means it is a huge mistake to make your mind so sad. For example, a child puts its foot into the mud and says “This is my temple.” Then another child smashes it and the first child cries. It does not make sense. Making the mind so sad does not help. It is better not to worry. It is better to accept [the situation] and to enjoy, and if you have a solution then do it. Don’t spend your precious human life in that [sadness]. Just do it rather than living your life in worry. This is great, great, great advice for depression.

Thinking about emptiness, or shunyata, the ultimate truth of the I, can help a lot to lift you from depression. It is very good, the more you meditate, think, analyze and try to learn about that. If you look for the I that you believe is there, the real I, you can’t find it. This method is like medicine for your depression. Read about the meditations, especially the analysis of the four vital points. It will be helpful.

Just briefly I want to mention the emptiness of the I, the ultimate reality of the I, the most important thing to realize.

The body is not the real I, as it appears. We believe and we entrust to that real I due to past ignorance having left negative imprints on the mind. So, the body is not the real I.

If the mind were the real I, as there are six primary consciousnesses and 51 mental factors there would be that many Is. Just in terms of the delusions there are the three poisonous minds, the root ignorance, the six root delusions and the twenty secondary delusions, so there would be that many Is. Then all those Is would have past lives and future lives. For somebody who is married, one wife would have many husbands [according to] the number of delusions, mental factors, all that. And one person’s air ticket would be false; it would be many people’s ticket.

If the mind were one with that real I, the I would not have a body. The I would be shapeless and colorless, as the mind is. Therefore, the mind is not the real I at all and neither is the body. If the mind were the I, we would not see it because it is oneness with the mind. What the eye sees is just the body, not the mind. Therefore, the mind is not the real I, and the body and mind together are not the real I. From the top of the head down to the toes, we cannot find the real I. It is not in the brain. It is not in the chest.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Some people get depression just during the night—that’s when it comes—or sometimes it’s only during the day, so that is the result of past life sexual misconduct. That is just knowledge for you. Then some people get depressed for no reason, even if there aren’t any problems like separation in the family, where the wife and husband separate, or they lost their business and so forth. So even if there is not a particular situation, depression can happen. The only answer is purification and confession. That is just knowledge for you to know.

The real answer is whatever happens, whether happiness or problems, utilize this on the path to enlightenment, which means the path to happiness, by transforming suffering into happiness, so thought transformation.

So it is good for your relative to think, “This is the result of my past negative karma—negative actions done with a negative mind—therefore it is good to experience this now. Otherwise if I don’t experience it now, then what happens is after my death I will immediately be reincarnated in the hell realms, in the lower realms, and I will experience unbelievable, most unbelievable suffering.” If that is materialized it’s like the size of the sky. The greatest suffering of human beings is like great peace for hell beings, if you compare the suffering, even for an hour or a minute.

Think, “By experiencing the result now, in this human life in the form of depression, then in the future I will be free from the heaviest suffering in those other realms.” So think, “I am very lucky because I am experiencing the result of my past negative karma in the form of this small suffering, depression and unhappiness, now.”

It is said by the great realized meditator Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa:

By experiencing even a little suffering now,
It finishes my past negative karmas
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in this present suffering.

Then in the future there will be happiness like the sun shining on all the people and animals, so all can enjoy it. There will be great happiness in the future and like that you will go to enlightenment, buddhahood. You will not only be free from the oceans of samsara, but you will also achieve peerless happiness—the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. Therefore, rejoice in this present suffering.

So this depression is a good thing, for example, if a snake bites you and you have to cut off the flesh where the snake bit, then you can survive, otherwise you would die. So there could be pain cutting it out, but this helps you survive for a long time, so it’s positive not negative. It is similar if you need an operation in order to remove cancer, so then the cancer has gone away. Therefore the pain of the operation is positive, because it helps you in the long run to live without cancer.

What your relative should recite is this:

By my experiencing this depression, may numberless living beings in each realm be free right away from all disease, spirit harm, negative karma and all the defilements, and may they achieve the supreme happiness, dharmakaya.

Then recite OM MANI PADME HUM. Recite this whole verse like a mantra and then OM MANI PADME HUM, doing half a mala or one mala or more. More is better, it’s unbelievable!

When we recite OM MANI PADME HUM it is not just for ourselves but for numberless others in each realm. Just like us they want happiness and do not want suffering. They are the same [as us] and they are constantly suffering and have been suffering from beginningless rebirth. However much they desire happiness, they are devoid of happiness. They are devoid of temporary happiness and devoid of ultimate happiness. Temporary happiness is in this life or future lives, but they are also devoid of ultimate happiness. Even if they have temporary happiness, they are devoid of ultimate happiness—liberation from the oceans of samsara—and they are also devoid of the peerless happiness, buddhahood, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations.

So recite OM MANI PADME HUM for them. Now you can see how it is most, most, most urgent to recite OM MANI PADME HUM for the sentient beings, because everyone is like us—they want happiness and do not want suffering. But this is not happening; they are not experiencing all these happinesses, instead they experience suffering.

Please try this.

With much love and prayers ...

These pujas came out for your mother:

• Long Life Sutra: 100 times, by the Kopan nuns
• Namgyal tse chog puja: four times, by the Kopan Lama Gyupas
• Diamond Cutter Sutra: five times, by Kopan Lama Gyupas.

Rinpoche was extremely, extremely pleased that your mother is reciting the Medicine Buddha mantra. Rinpoche read the rest of your letter and said:

Regarding your feelings of isolation and separation, that is the result; you don’t know this, but it’s a very positive thing happening. For someone who doesn’t know Dharma, that person thinks of it as sickness, a mental problem, thinking it’s wrong, but it’s a very good thing. However, a person who doesn’t know that thinks of it as mental sickness.

In your case it’s something like a result of having generated renunciation in a past life, having practiced renunciation in a past life, seeing the suffering nature of samsara. So now, rather than getting attached to samsara, to friends and materials, you are not feeling that [attachment.] That is from having practiced renunciation in the past, seeing the nature of samsara, the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering.

So instead of being attached to outside objects, you withdraw from these things. It’s like a Dharma practitioner who has realized renunciation or is coming near to that, so it is like that. But it is very positive and what it really means is that you can become a pure Dharma practitioner, and from that you can realize the true nature of suffering of yourself and all sentient beings, then it is easy to generate bodhicitta.

Also, I want to say how you are thinking about depression, that this is a little like how other people think; that it is something uncomfortable and wrong. I would like to remind you that there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas who cherish you most. You have to remember that all the time there are numberless buddhas who cherish you most, who cherish all sentient beings, and that includes you. Remember that every day.

Therefore you have to do what they like, what pleases the buddhas the most, so from that you can understand you should read lamrim and Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Basically, read those texts and study Buddhist philosophy, but those texts are the main ones—lamrim and A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.

So there is nothing wrong, in reality nothing is wrong. You can have a positive mind, but if you don’t know Dharma, then you think it is mental sickness.

Other books you should read are Wheel of Sharp Weapons and Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend.

These books are good to read, so you can understand that even though the suras [demigods] have incredible, unbelievable pleasure compared to human beings—the pleasure of human beings is very poor compared to them—but still it is in the nature of suffering. The highest pleasure in human life is also really in the nature of suffering.

If you read more lamrim and A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, in this way you will see how samsara is in the nature of suffering, then you will understand how it is positive, very positive, and because of that you will have more thoughts of cherishing others, more good heart.

You should read these books:

• Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand (lamrim)
• A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, also with commentary; there is a commentary by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. You will learn a lot from these teachings.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your emails. I am sorry for the long delay.

To achieve enlightenment in this life means to free the sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering quickly and bring them to enlightenment quickly. Therefore you need to achieve buddhahood in this lifetime, quickly, and in one brief lifetime of degenerate time.

The two main deities that you have a strong karmic connection with are Most Secret Hayagriva and Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso. From these two deities it seems you have a stronger connection with Most Secret Hayagriva. You can take both initiations, but when the time comes for you to do retreat, your main deity is Most Secret Hayagriva.

Most Secret Hayagriva is an extremely powerful deity for pacifying obstacles and for success. The particular function is to dispel obstacles and the need to control sentient beings to bring them to enlightenment. Until you receive the initiation you can recite the Most Secret Hayagriva mantra for the time being. Later you can receive the initiation and do retreat.

If you can receive the oral transmission of the mantra that would be very good. Maybe I can give it to you by phone if you send your number, if you want, then it’s more powerful when you recite the mantra.

Regarding my own experience with high blood pressure, there is one student who had very high blood pressure and when he was in Nepal he asked me what to do. I gave him the meditation practice of tonglen, which is taking other sentient beings’ sufferings and the causes, delusion and karma, and giving one’s merits and happiness up to enlightenment to other sentient beings. He did the meditation and every time he did it, his blood pressure went down. Whenever he did it, maybe for half an hour, his blood pressure always went down.

So that’s proof. This also came out in my observation for you, that it’s best for you to do tonglen. I have written different things on tonglen. [See: The Preliminary Practice of Tonglen.] Some of it isn’t relevant, but you can take from it the different ways to meditate on tonglen. The advice Dealing with Cancer contains tonglen practice within it, so that is the part that is relevant for you.

One Nepalese lady in the USA had high blood pressure and went to the doctors and took many medicines. I told her to do tonglen practice and gave her some blessed pills. Her blood pressure went down after that, but I haven’t met her for a long time now.

So please do tonglen practice.

In regard to your obstacles for finance and wealth you need to practice Yellow Tara meditation.

Don’t worry about your wife. You have to know that since we are in samsara, it is our nature that once we are born we will die. Only if we actualize the four noble truths, the ultimate wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, then we can cease delusion and karma, the cause of suffering. Then we can be free from the suffering of samsara, and we don’t have to die. We will be free from old age, sickness and death, like arhats. Otherwise after we are born, we have to die.

Also, you have to know that every sentient being has been your wife and you have been the wife of all sentient beings. You have been mother and father of all sentient beings and the enemy of all sentient beings as well. So that experience is nothing new, it is not the first time. We have had this experience numberless times, but we don’t know because we don’t have omniscient mind, we don’t even have ordinary clairvoyance. We think we only have one life, only this life, so we have a very limited mind, very obscured, like a blind eye, a very blind eye, like that.

Please read my advice on depression, the different things I have said. Please read the advice slowly, over and over again. [See Rinpoche's Advice on Depression and Transforming Depression.]

To begin with, regarding depression, you are much, much better than numberless other human beings in the world, who have one hundred times, two hundred times or even one thousand times greater problems than you. Many numberless others are much worse off than you. Thinking like that, you should feel very happy, very fortunate.

There was a great lama who followed Lama Atisha—who came from Nalanda in India to Tibet, to revive Buddhism—this great lama, Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa, advised:

Even the present small suffering,
Finishes our past heavy negative karma, bad karma,
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, feel happy about this current suffering.

That means experiencing the suffering while thinking about the benefits of that suffering. By experiencing the suffering now, it finishes our past heavy negative karma and in the future [we] will be like the sun shining in the world. The one sun in the universe, when it shines on the animals, like flies, bees and all insects, they can all enjoy it; and all the human beings and all the flowers and so forth also enjoy it.

In the future you will have so much happiness, therefore it is very good to have the suffering now. That is the benefit of suffering now.

The conclusion is that it is very good, very fortunate to experience it now, otherwise what happens if you don’t suffer now, if you don’t have problems now, then you continue to create a lot of negative karma and you will be reborn in the lower realms, in the hell realms, as a hungry ghost or an animal for eons and eons. You will experience unbelievable suffering there. The suffering of the lower realms, the unbearable suffering of the hell realms, is so great that one hour or one minute there is unbearable. If it is conveyed as a material thing, how much suffering you experience is as large as the sky.

Therefore, compared to the hell realms especially, where the hell beings are experiencing the heaviest suffering, the suffering you are experiencing in the human realm is great peace. It’s like nirvana, it’s like liberation from samsara; it’s great peace compared to the hell realm sufferings. You have to recognize this. You have to feel that there are many advantages to having the problems now.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva that if you have problems it destroys your arrogance and pride, and then compassion arises for others who are suffering in samsara.   

Furthermore, suffering has good qualities:
Through being disheartened with it, arrogance is dispelled,
Compassion arises for those in cyclic existence,
Negativity is shunned and joy is found in virtue.
     [A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Ch. 6, v. 21]  

Therefore, think about others who have similar problems. For example, people with AIDS have a lot of compassion for other people who have AIDS.

Like that, we become more careful to not create negative karma, which is the cause of suffering, and we wish to create more good karma, the cause of happiness. Whether it is great or small, we must abandon negative karma, because we don’t want even the smallest suffering, even in our dreams.

Thinking like this helps compassion for others to arise and it becomes the cause of generating bodhicitta for other sentient beings.

It helps to study the Middle Way view of emptiness only—the two truths, ultimate truth and conventional truth. Study and practice as much as possible, in order to realize emptiness. That eliminates the root of samsara—ignorance, holding the I as it appears truly existent, existing from its own side, existing by its own nature, a real one, and  believing in that one hundred percent. That is ignorance, the root of samsara. However, the I exists in mere name and is merely labeled by the mind; there is no other I than that. There is no real I. “Real” means existing from there, from its own side. So that’s the reality.

If you can meditate on this, that would be very good. You can use even simple words on emptiness to meditate.

For example, this I is not truly existent. Meditate on that.

The reason is that it is dependent arising. Regarding the meaning of dependent arising, there is gross dependent arising, which is depending on cause and conditions. That is gross dependent arising.

Subtle dependent arising is that the I is merely imputed by the valid mind on the valid base, the aggregates that we have now. That is how the I exists. It exists in mere name. Meditate on that. The I is merely labeled by the valid mind, related to the valid aggregates that we have now. Meditate on that.

This will help you very much. The root is ignorance. That is the root of the oceans of samsara sufferings and the causes, delusion and karma.

This is the best way to eliminate depression.

Please do the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) every day.

Thank you very, very much.

With much love and prayers ...

My very dear one,
Thank you very much your kind emails, I read them all. I am sorry I didn’t get to reply your first emails. Now by doing observation I am telling you it came out very good for you to read the Vajra Cutter Sutra. Please read it three times and please read it mindfully.

Please read this very soon and read it very mindfully. It purifies negative karma collected from beginningless time and collects extensive merits and wisdom, and plants the seed of the path, particularly realizing emptiness. If you read the sutra with bodhicitta, it plants the seed of enlightenment.

Then, have this puja done: gya tong pa (8,000 Verse Prajnaparamita.) You also need lu zong puja.

This is my advice for now.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your email.  I am sorry for the long delay. Read Liberation in the Palm of your Hand if you can, especially the section on guru devotion.

Also think, “I may die this year, this month, this week or today. There are so many human beings who die in the mother’s womb, right after birth or as children. They die when they are young or when they are old, at all kind of ages. This could be me.” Think like that.

After death, even though the body disintegrates, the consciousness continues. There is no third way; there are only two ways—either rebirth in the lower realms or a higher rebirth. If negative karma is what we have done the most and that is the strongest, then we will be reborn in the lower realms. That is karma. If good karma is what we have done more of, then mainly we will receive a higher rebirth.

We ordinary beings try to practice Dharma, but it’s difficult for it to become pure Dharma. We can understand how this is not easy by examining our actions from morning to night, whether they become Dharma or not. Just because we are doing prayers it doesn’t mean that is Dharma. It depends on the mind. Just doing prayers or meditation and so forth doesn’t define Dharma; it depends on the mind.

If the mind becomes Dharma then our actions of body, speech and mind become Dharma. For the mind to become Dharma it needs to be unstained by attachment to this life, therefore first we need to generate renunciation. We can see that praying and meditation doesn’t define our Dharma practice, it’s our mind that defines whether something is Dharma or not. If the mind is not Dharma then all the actions of our body, speech and mind also don’t become Dharma.

There are so many people in the world, every day, who have no thought that they are going to die at all. They think they are going to live for many years; [they have that] motivation. They believe that their life is permanent and that they will live for many years, but many people will die today with that belief. Think, “I could be one of them.”

There is no need for you to be sad or depressed, because you have met the Buddhadharma. Other people in the world have not had this opportunity. They don’t believe in reincarnation, karma and haven’t met the Dharma, so they are only depressed. They don’t know how to help the situation, but you have met the Dharma and you know how to purify and collect merit, therefore you are very fortunate.

If you can, recite OM MANI PADME HUM with bodhicitta motivation, for all sentient beings to be free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and to bring them to peerless happiness, the omniscient mind. That includes yourself. To really be able to benefit all sentient beings you need to achieve enlightenment also. Think more about the suffering of numberless sentient beings and then recite OM MANI PADME HUM. This is the essence of Dharma. It is very good, very rich.

It is very important to think like this every day.

Please read the section of the lamrim on guru devotion and enjoy life with bodhicitta, with the good heart. Live your life with a good heart, benefiting sentient beings. You will always enjoy life with that. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers...