Advice on Depression
Practices for Daughter's Depression
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student whose daughter has depression.
Dear Helena,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I thought I heard your life had changed. It seems now you have become Vajradhara, with the father and mother together. I am not sure whether the Vajradhara is permanent or impermanent, but I don't have the qualities.
I suggest that your daughter practices very short Vajrasattva purification with the remedy of the four powers. Depression comes from past negative karma. In the Wheel of Sharp Weapons degenerating samaya is one explanation and another explanation from the Kangyur is that experiencing depression at night, when you can't explain the reasons for it, means it comes from the past negative karma of sexual misconduct. It is also there when the person wakes up in the morning. Anyway, she needs some purification. If she is not Buddhist she can do this as a psychological practice, as a therapy. She can look at it that way.
Also, practice Ganapati when she feels unhappy and depressed, even if she has reasons for her depression. It can fill the heart with happiness. Maybe you can find the six-arm Ganapati, in color, in an art book, maybe at the Dharma center. Otherwise, I can send you one. I will send you the mantra, many short ones, from a consecration text, a long one. When you fill statues with the mantras, first you put the nine deities in, then Ganapati, then the eight auspicious symbols and the double vajra. This is the meditation and mantra that you use to bless. The text has the different mantras for blessing the life trees, substances, and so forth. If she wants to practice I can send the visualization and mantra. This is the first idea of what can help.
Also, please check the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website for advice on depression. She should read and study the advice on depression, and do whatever she finds most effective. First, to study is very important. She can study, and you can explain and help her.
She can also recite four malas each day of the following mantra for her depression:
The Mantra Eliminating the Harsh Pain of the Three Grounds:
OM HE HE SU SVAHA / OM KU KE KA TA SVAHA / OM SHU HE KA SHA SVAHA
With much love and prayer...
Practice Tonglen for Depression
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a student who was suffering with depression.
My very dear Janet,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I'm sorry for the long delay in replying.
Please read and study well the various advice that I have given for depression, especially the advice I gave to a student who had very bad depression. The thing that she found helped the most was doing tonglen practice, bodhicitta practice—this means the path to enlightenment, and the wish to liberate suffering beings and to enlighten all suffering beings. That is the greatest achievement in life, making the happiest life.
With much love and prayers...
Balloon Mantras for Daughter's Depression
Two students asked what they could do for their daughter, who has severe depression. They also asked about writing mantras on balloons that they could then release into the air.
My very dear Jean and Peter,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.
Regarding your questions about your daughter, you and Peter can recite the Sanghata Sutra for your daughter 21 times.
Regarding the mantras for balloons, just sending balloons up into the air and then they are blown away is not very beneficial. You must print mantras on the balloons, so that you can collect a lot of merit. By printing mantras on the balloons and writing praises for success, whatever you wish, it is the same as the function of prayer flags.
There is a monk at the Dharma center who can help you to write the mantras. It is better to have a stamp made, so that you don't need to ask other people to write them every time.
These are the mantras to put on the balloons:
- Mani mantra (Compassion Buddha)
- Medicine Buddha mantra
- Any of the Five Powerful Mantras
With much love and prayers...
Severe Depression
A student had been regularly visiting a man in hospital who was severely depressed. She asked Rinpoche whether she should continue or not, as she thought that it had become hopeless.
When nothing works, and you don’t have the necessary power, you must rely on higher beings: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Make strong prayers to the Twenty-One Taras and visualize light rays, which are the essence of great bliss and cause the depressed person to generate the whole path, are emitted from the heart of the Twenty-One Taras. Each atom of the person is filled with bliss. Then think that he generates the whole path—compassion, bodhicitta and wisdom realizing emptiness.
Dealing with Depression
A student came to see Rinpoche at Vajrapani Buddhist Center in California, with depression problems. She had not seen a psychiatrist. Rinpoche asked the student whether she was depressed regularly, every month or according to some cycle. She said it was very irregular and it came for a few days and then went, but it had been at a low level for the past year. She cried for no particular reason, without knowing why, and she was angry with herself for that. She thought she just had to sit still at those times. The first part of Rinpoche’s response is below. The remainder of Rinpoche's advice is posted as part of a compilation of advice on depression which you can read here.
That is good! That is very good, otherwise you might waste your time and instead of being helped, there is more harm. These days there is another kind of psychology, a new kind. Some of our students are studying this now, and it is like a bridge to the Dharma. This is very good, especially for non-Buddhists.
From other psychologists, there may be a lot of harm, danger to one’s life and a lot of negative thoughts get created. At first, you didn’t have negative thoughts toward a certain person, then by going to the psychologist, you come to blame that person, especially your parents. They become the root of your life’s problems. That is terrible. That makes you have a grudge against your parents for your whole life and that grudge makes your mind negative toward them. I don’t know what the parents’ solution would be, who they are going to blame. It’s very strange.
The new psychology is very close to Dharma and there is no harm created, nothing that makes your mind negative toward anybody. It doesn’t involve that. It is presented in a very skillful way.
Read the second part of Rinpoche's advice here
Battling with Depression
Rinpoche heard that an old student, who had been battling depression intermittently for some time, had recently lapsed into a severe depression. Rinpoche wrote him the following letter, unsolicited.
My very dear one,
Hi! I heard you went to another realm these days.
Remember many times in a day that if things can be mended, what is the need to be unhappy? Even if some things cannot be mended, what is the benefit of feeling dislike and being unhappy?
Change your attitude in life. Instead of cherishing the “I,” cherish others. For one day, just think of others. Think only of their needs, their happiness, their liberation, and their enlightenment. Take that as your object of concentration for that day. Then try again the next day. Continue like that. Then eating, sleeping, whatever you do, try to do that for others.
The next thing is, any negative thought you have—“This is bad, that is bad”—try to put it positively, thinking of it on the positive side. For example, when you think of samsara, think that you can be liberated from it and others can be liberated from it, because of emptiness. The main reason why you can be liberated, even from the sufferings of samsara, and others can be liberated is because things are empty and because of dependent arising. Those are the main reasons.
If you think of your past negative karma, do the same thing. Think that it can be purified. Even the unhappiness that you experience, your depression, through this you are finishing your past negative karma that otherwise would have to be experienced as unbearable suffering in the lower realms for eons.
Not only that, because you made prayers so many times when doing Guru Puja to be able to experience others’ suffering, praying for those sufferings to ripen on yourself when doing tonglen, you can think, “Now I have succeeded! Now I’m experiencing depression on behalf of other sentient beings, who are numberless. Each time I experience this unhappiness for sentient beings, I collect merit as vast as the sky and it becomes unbelievable purification of so many lifetimes of negative karma. I will experience this strongly on behalf of others.”
Think: “Each time I experience depression or unhappiness for others, I become closer to enlightenment. That means each time I experience depression and unhappiness, I become closer to being able to bring others to enlightenment and free them from suffering.”
What else is there more enjoyable to experience than this? What else besides experiencing problems or unhappiness for other sentient beings?
Bodhicitta is the source of all your happiness and success, and your bodhicitta is the source of the happiness of numberless sentient beings.
Each time you perform this practice, you develop bodhicitta. Therefore enjoy your life. Have a good time and good luck.
With much love and prayer...
More talks by Lama Zopa on this topic:
Transforming Depression
See the Transforming Problems topic in the Practice Advice chapter of the Advice Book.