Dealing with Depression is a difficult task, due to the fact that when you are already immersed in a depressive state.. I made a post to try to help someone on the E-Sangha forums who was depressed, and felt that i wish to include a re- edit of that post here on the blog for those who may find it useful, It not only deals with depression, but also with the dismantling of Sangkhara (conditioned thought), which is pure Vipassana Kammathana practise, and the body of Enlightenment.

Using Dhamma to deal with Depression;

Many people who recieve anti depressants from their Doctor, and also Drug abusers, have great difficulty with depression; Some of these people often Contemplate committing Suicide. Often, such people do not know where or how to appeak for help in dealing with their depression, and feel very desperate.

If you wish to be the “Master of your Soul and Captain of your “Fate”.. then please read this and practise it. May any mistakes or accidental offences to the triple gem made be forgiven.

You should practise Anapanasathi (contemplation of breath) along with vedhananupassana (contemplation of mood and sensation) and Cittanupassana (contemplation of mental state).
This means that you should meditate daily by focusing on your breath going in and out, rising and falling – try to focus on the little wisp of wind on the tip of your nose as it goes in and out and notice whether the breathing is slow, fast, or whatever (but don’t feel you have to force it slower; just notice it. Whilst doing this, you should begin to watch your feelings and emotional state. Am I happy? am i Sad? am i stressed? am i just neutral?…
As the mental state of awareness changes, and wanders between Kusala and Akusala (auspicious/inauspicious), tranquil to agitated, etc, notice how the various moods and feelings just come and go and change constantly. See how they are impermanent and always in fluctuation. When you get depressed, then remember your meditations and having noticed how emotions and moods are always changing and moving (and therefore impermanent), and refuge in that fact.. that even bad times and unpleasant experiences are going to come to an end, it is just a question of time. We cannot change the outer world to the way we want it to be,, and even when we can, it is only a matter of time before it changes again. But how we feel about it inside, that is always changing. So although our good times and moods will have to reach their end (cessation), so will all our negative and unpleasant ones too.
The realization of Impermanence (Anicca), and Your re-iteration of the fact to oneself, is a great dissolver of suffering (clinging) and assists us in the Great Art of “Letting Go” – all you need is to master the art of letting go.. when you are suffering or depressed you must just let go. Once you have managed to let go of a feeling or thought you are clinging to one time, you will see how much of a relief and blissful feeling it is. There was once an experienced drug user I knew who used to take extremely large amounts of amphetamines and ecstasy. Due to that experience, when himself and his companion used to get extreme sadness and depression on the “comedown” – his friend used to become totally drowned in the emotion and was unable to help herself. The experienced drug user however, through the knowledge that the depression was simply a chemical reaction amplifying his reaction to his thoughts, he would just tell himself “this is a heavy comedown and due to the drug. when this has tided over, I will feel more settled and in no time i shall feel better, as all things pass away, so will this feeling”
His knowledge of the transience of mood helped him in withstanding the onslaught.
If your meditations can’t help you, then at least stick with that piece of logic to tide you over till the depression has lifted.. as it most certainly will fade, just as all things do.

Summary;

Practise developing awareness of Impermanence (Anicca), and this will enable you to reduce the clinging which is most certainly the cause of suffering.
Practicing the 4 Sathipatanas is however the real way to attain release from such experiences, as it will enable you to see the real inner causes; for there are no outer causes of suffering. Only in the heart-mind is where our suffering, and it’s root resides.
Even with watching the breath rising and falling, you will notice how each breath comes into being (arisal) and fades into the past, giving way to the next breath (falling). there are four stages.. intake (notice the comfort) full for a second pause (notice how the comfort begins to become agitation), exhalation/falling/disappearing (notice how the relief comes) and empty – extinguished/cessation (notice how the agitation and craving for a new breath intake begins).
By focusing on the breath and contemplating these four stages of breath, you can see how craving for satisfaction causes addiction to that satisfaction, how the satisfaction and pleasure is impermanent and how the fact that if it was constantly maintained then it would become discomfort and unsatisfactory – how relief from clinging to such and letting go brings relief, and how our clinging heart starts the process all over again, to go round in a circle of seeking satisfaction, attaining relief which is not permanent, and witnessing it’s cessation, simply to begin another round.
If you practise this often you will realize the truth of Impermanence and even that of Suffering.. two of the three conditions all living beings are subject to (except the Arahants); Anicca/impermanence and Dhukka/unsatisfactoriness or Suffering).. the last one of the three, anatta, i should perhaps leave for another day.. but perhaps i might give a small hint to realizing it in the same breathing meditation.. you will have to think of things such as the wind on your skin and the sounds outside.. see how they are not yourself, and separate (this is quite easy to see).. then think of the waves of thought and emotions and physical sensations within you. see how the mood rises affects you and then washes away?
Just as the wind blows against your skin (affects you with cold and displeasure or warmth and pleasure) and blows away. If you contemplate these facts often enough in your meditations, then you will see that even the things you held for parts of yourself are nothing to do with you, rather simply phenomena which rise and fall and affect you when coming into contact with your awareness.
This is Anatta (non self). The reason that it is easier to see outer phenomena as non self than it is to see inner phenomena as such is because the inner phenomena reside withiin our 5 khandas and the outer ones appear not to. We are accustomed to identifiy ourselves with the Khandas. This is the veil masking non self from our perceptory senses, and the reson we think our feelings are us/ours.

if you can add this third aspect to your realizations then you shall surely become adept in mastering your depressions.
Anatta is difficult to perceive for many, as we are so deeply rooted into seeing things as “me/mine”..
“My Memory, My depression, my happiness, My Leg, My pain”
well a person is like a car really..
a car needs a carburettor, wheels, petrol, oil.
but is the oil part of the car? no. as are our thoughts, emotions and bodily parts not part of us, rather just ingredients which make up the composition which our consciousness resides in as a vehicle of perception. (see 32 parts of the body in a post i made about Kayanupassana practise)
If you take the Car and dismantle it you will see that it is no longer a car, rather a pile of other “individual” objects (carburettor, wheel etc)
If you take the carburettor and dismantle it you will find another subsequent group of “individual” objects (screws, valves etc) you can also dismantle these things further until all that remains after the final process of dismantling analysis is four elements (ancient people call earth air fire and water.. which is an analogy that causes disbelief in modern minds and is erroneous causing misunderstanding)
Earth is not soil and water element is not H20.. earth has wetness(water), hardness (earth) temperature(fire), and space between the molecules (air). So you can find all four “elements” in the classical archaic element representations.. this is something that causes many people to misunderstand the four elements greatly. If you take H20 and lower the temperature it becomes hard (ice/earth element), if you heat it then it becomes vaporous (air element).. in its “normal state” (on earth at room temperature) it is water. Its temperature in whatever state is of course representative of more or less fire element.
It is impossible for any matter be it soil, water, flames or air to exist without combining these four “real elements”.
summary;
All conditioned things are Sangkhara (conceptual theoretical objects which have no real existence outside of our perception/minds)
All Sangkharas can be broken down into their component parts, and the component parts can also be broken down consecutively until reaching the point of the four elements. Physical form is known as “Rupa” – all forms are rupa be it a car a cinema a human a table etc. But if you see a landscape and break it down into forest (trees, branches, leaves etc), river (rocks water fish etc), mountains (caves, grass, forest, snow etc) and see that the landscape and indeed all its component parts are a series of ever smaller parts, then at the point of reduction which reaches the basic four elements and no more conditioned conceptual names ( a “box” of “KFC” finally passes through paper to tree to wood to four elements and “fried chicken and vegetable oil” through dead animal to four elements too), you still have “RUPA” do not think that RUPA ends with our perception’s end. Rupa is there but has no more constructed shapes interpreted by the observer. This primordial rupa is called “Maha Phuta Rupa”.
Think of the space between the molecules in the table and the leg and feet of the table.. think of the spaces between the molecules of the floor. Our mind sees floor and table as separate entities. But there is not really anything separating the spaces between the molecules of the table and the spaces between the molecules of the floor!
If there was no observer, then all things we perceive as separate objects are really a massive ocean of atoms and space between them. All percieved separate units are really just one single cloud of matter molecules with variations on density (as one part of a cloud might be dense with rain and the other part still more empty) – but although there are variations in density in certain places, it is still one cloud.
This massive ocean/cloud of molecules and atoms permeated by space is the Maha Phuta Rupa.

We cannot see this because our minds are conditioned by Sangkhara. Our minds ar the thing which filters this ocean of maha Puta Rupa and defines separate objects such as “the table” and “the floor”

This is anatta. perceive that emotion and depression is just a wave on the ocean and will fade.. as all things do. Contemplate this and you shall no longer cling to these waves .. which is suffering.

We have no real Outer Refuges – our only Refuge is Inner Refuge.
Download and listen to Thanissaro Bhikkhus Dhamma Talk on Inner Refuge (June 2009)

here are some downloads of dhamma teachings on the 5 hindrances for you to listen to.. they will help you with dealing with many obstacles in life.
The 5 Hindrances talks – Intro
The 5 Hindrances talks – Ill Will
The 5 Hindrances talks – Doubt
The 5 Hindrances talks – Restlessness and Worry
5 Hindrances talks – Sloth and Torpor

5 Hindrances talks – Sensual Desire

We change our bodies many times in One lifetime without noticing

Disattaching oneself from impermanent refuges.

Recognizing attachment to pleasure is seen as a root of suffering in Buddhism.Although people begin to practise Buddhism normally as an intent to improve happiness and therefore also “pleasure” in Life, pleasure is seen as suffering.

Where is the sense in this seemingly “self contradictory” statement? The sense is in the dissolution of the semantics of the phrase and understanding the limits of the concept of what is “pleasure”, when words are used, then things can only be explained within the framework of dualism. Languages and words are dualistic in Nature, and unable to emcompass the accurate explanation of the Absolute.
But to intend to clear up any confusion as to what is meant, we can consider the fact that it is not the sensation of pleasure that is referred to as “Ultimate” pleaure – ultimate peace and Nibbana must be a pleasurable state, although no fluctuating emotial or mental waves may occur (which is what is normally percieved as “normal sensory pleasures”)..
It is the “Attachment to sensory Pleasures”, not the pleasure itself that is the root of suffering (we suffer when we have miss, to part with the pleasant things we are used to having) . Once one has attained non-attachment to pleasure and suffering, then one reaches a supreme state of elevated consciousness which can only be discribed as Blissful (Supreme pleasure?). One must not want or seek pleasures in order to not suffer, and attain that pleasure of being which we all seek.

IMPERMANENCE

Once we can recognize the worldly pleasures as impermanent and therefore unsatisfactory, one recognizes the eventual suffering that each pleasure carries with it like it’s own shadow. – some people have difficulty grasping how some more long lasting phenomaena are also impermanent.. one reason for impermanence being masked under the illusion of “Maya”, is what we call “Iriabot” in Thai, and is one of the blocks to our seeing the 3 conditions of Impermanence (Anicca), Unsatisfactoriness (Dhukka) and Non-Self (Anatta). Iriabot means movement and speed of movement. One reason we don’t notice that to have a body is suffering, for example, is that when we sit in the same position for a while, and it begins to hurt, then you change position. This stops us from seeing the suffering of the body. As far as Impermanence is concerned and that the attachment to things (all things are impermanent) is suffering. Suffering because those things which give us pleasure are gone eventually. So why are all things impermanent? some people may think that a mountain is permanent because no apparent change or movement is percievable. But if you speed things up a bit, you would see the mountain be born, grow and fade again, and eventually disappear from existence. Even Universes implode and explode in the end, so in the long run, all things are impermanent, and in the end, even our lives and bodies must be given back to the four elements and the space between them. All things are in the process of dissolution and constantly disappearing before our eyes. Even ourselves are dissolving, dying slowly or quickly, but dying.
Recognition of Impermanence and Suffering as a result of the attachment to impermanent things, results in a natural abbhorrence and pulling away from such attachments. remember, it is the attachment that causes the suffering, not the impermanent matters or things. Many people may wonder why they cant get rid of their fads for things, it is because the fad is seen as the cause of the suffering, and not one’s attachment to it.
Once a correct understanding and view of the matter has been obtained, eventual spontaneous non-indulgence in attachment to impermanent pleasures will develop.

Mind pages (category) will be presenting some theories involved with;
Enlightenment, Vision of reality, self and non-self, Sunyatta (Emptiness), Anicca (Impermanence) and perhaps even Dhukkha (Suffering). The nature of the non-Self and Emptiness of Mind shall be attempted to be explained, along with its relationship to the universe percieved as within, and also without.

We are all One.

On “Oneself”……. (Emptiness and the Non-Self against the Atman)

Coming soon…..