Dealing with Depression

My very dear Jenny,
Thank you so much for your email.

Use your depression by experiencing it with compassion. Meditate on taking on all sentient beings’ depression and suffering and the cause of that suffering. It comes to you and absorbs into your heart. Your self-cherishing thought is destroyed. Even the inherently existent “I” becomes non-existent, the “I” that appears as if it were truly existent.

Perform this practice with compassion for others who have more depression than you. Numberless beings experience depression for many lifetimes, without end. Think, “I am just one living being. No matter how much suffering I experience, others who are numberless, have so much more suffering.” Think, “By my receiving all this depression, they are free of all suffering and have all happiness up to liberation and enlightenment. I experience it for them, and let them have all happiness up to enlightenment. How wonderful to be able to do this, because all my happiness is due to the kindness of each sentient being. They are the most precious objects in my life, from whom I receive all my happiness.”

Then generate loving kindness: “I must cause them to have happiness and the cause of happiness.” They receive whatever they want and need, all their pleasure becomes the pleasure of the pure land of the Buddha where no problems exist. They receive from you the purest, highest sense pleasures, enjoyment, beauty: everything they need. That causes them to actualize the whole path to enlightenment. Their mind becomes the Dharmakaya, their body becomes the Rupakaya. All become enlightened.

Perform this meditation, if possible, in the morning, afternoon, and night, taking and giving 5, 10, 20 times or more. Spend more time taking. While eating, walking, and at other times think, “I am experiencing this depression on behalf of all sentient beings.” Think it is not your depression.

Enjoy your depression by voluntarily taking on the experience for numberless sentient beings and giving the depression to your ego, destroying it completely. Enjoy depression in this way.

Think of the depression as purification of past negative karma, “If I don't experience this now, I will have to experience the hell realms for many years, so it is good to have it now.”

Also think, “I am experiencing past heavy negative karma. This is being purified by my experiencing this.”

Experience the depression on behalf of all sentient beings. Use it to purify the cause of depression and all negative karma. Use the depression to achieve happiness, like transforming poison into medicine, like, for example, snake venom that is used for medicine.

Also, use depression to collect extensive merit. This way your depression becomes like many hundreds of thousands of prostrations and recitation of powerful deities’ mantras. It becomes like preliminary practices for purifying and collecting extensive merit, such as by making mandala offerings.

Work for other sentient beings to collect merit and purify. Here, you are using your depression to achieve not just temporal happiness but ultimate happiness. Transform it into the path to enlightenment. Use it to develop compassion for other sentient beings and bodhicitta. It is not only the cause to achieve your own enlightenment but it brings ultimate happiness, up to enlightenment, for all sentient beings. So, enjoy depression in this way.

At the beginning it is good to accept your depression, thinking “I deserve this.” That can help. Start with that. Use the depression for meditation to develop renunciation of samsara, bodhicitta, and right view. This way your depression is used so as to be totally free of depression forever. It becomes the best Dharma practice and best way of healing.

Usually, taking medicine and following psychological advice doesn’t do anything for the cause of depression, although it forces the problem down for a short time. It is like drinking alcohol. When it is gone from the body, the problem is still there.

If you have depression due to a particular reason, for example, a relationship problem, meditate on that situation. If the depression is without reason, then do the mediation I have explained here.

Using depression to develop compassion enables us to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. It allows us to free sentient beings from suffering and bring them to enlightenment more quickly. So, enjoy all these benefits of depression, by thinking about them clearly.