Using Depression to Cut the Ego

My dear Richard,
Thank you for your letter. Please read The Wheel of Sharp Weapons. You can read about any problem you have in this text. It explains how to use the problem to cut the ego, the self-cherishing thought, including depression, because self-cherishing is the main enemy to developing bodhicitta, which is what you need to achieve enlightenment and to enlighten all sentient beings. This is the best technique to heal your depression. 

Think: "I have made prayers in the past and present that I may receive all sentient beings’ suffering, especially depression."  There is more advice coming in the other email.

With much love and prayers...

Think that the nature of your mind is clear light, buddha nature, so you can be free from all problems. The delusions, all the mistakes of the mind, are all temporary. Even though delusions have a beginning, they can be ended. That is why stains, all suffering, which comes from delusions, can be pacified. Buddha explained all the methods and path to do that. By practicing that, you can definitely overcome them.

You have a good heart now and you can develop this and expand it to all sentient beings. It is like when the Buddha was a bodhisattva, and cherished each and every sentient being, offering extensive benefits to them.

The best thing is to use the depression. There are many meditations on thought transformation, but the key thing is to use depression like a weapon, a bomb, against your self-cherishing thought. You committed non-virtuous actions and depression is the result of that. It is like the enemy, the self-cherishing thought, likes harming you with depression. So, now you use the depression that the self-cherishing thought has given you in the same way—you hit back at the self-cherishing thought, which so far hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment, not even liberation from samsara, or to have any realizations. It has only made you suffer for beginningless rebirths, up until now.

As long as you keep the ego, as long as the ego dwells in your heart, it will be the same; it will hook so many problems, especially obstacles to practicing Dharma. It won’t allow you to have any attainment in the future: liberation or enlightenment. It will continuously make you suffer torture in samsara, and keep you in samsaric problems.

When depression comes, use it against the ego, the self-cherishing thought, which has given you the depression. Then rejoice, “How wonderful it is to have depression, which can destroy the ego.” Rather than the ego defeating you, you defeat the ego. Rejoice how it’s wonderful to have depression. It means you have succeeded in the prayers you made in the past to experience all the sufferings of other sentient beings, especially the important one, all sentient beings’ depression. Think, “I am experiencing this for all the sentient beings who are experiencing depression now and who will experience it in the future.” By experiencing this for others, for numberless sentient beings, depression becomes the path for you to achieve enlightenment. That means it becomes the path to enlighten all sentient beings, and the cause of happiness of all sentient beings. So, this should be your top meditation, the best one.

Therefore, depression becomes like a wish-granting jewel, the most precious thing, fulfilling your own wishes and those of all sentient beings for happiness: the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras, and intermediate stage beings. Look at it as positive. You can use both methods: using depression to destroy the ego and experiencing depression for all sentient beings. Both ways you use the depression to generate bodhicitta and develop bodhicitta. In this way, it makes your life more meaningful than not having depression. If you did not have depression, your life would be filled with distractions and you wouldn’t practice Dharma sincerely, experiencing suffering for all sentient beings. Your depression gives you the opportunity to do that all the time.

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 meditation as I have explained here.

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

The secret of your life’s happiness, the key to being happy and to stopping depression, to stopping undesirable, unpleasant things, unhappiness and unpleasant appearances, sounds, etc., and to experiencing happiness, feeling good, having pleasant appearances and sounds, etc., all depends on your mind labeling things as positive.

Even suffering results are the product of past negative karma, but in this life, today, this minute, this hour, this second, if you look at a situation as positive, as good, then you see there is a good, positive, pleasant feeling instead of an undesirable feeling. Then, whatever problem one experiences, one thinks about the benefit of problems, and how they are beneficial for one’s own life, to develop one’s mind in compassion, loving kindness, patience, wisdom, and all the positive qualities for the path to liberation.

By thinking of the benefits of problems, one develops this precious quality, this most healthy, positive way of thinking, which brings happiness and stops you from harming yourself and from giving harm to your family and all living beings.

With this positive thought, you are able to make problems, obstacles, and undesirable things so meaningful and beneficial. You are able to make your life so meaningful. Thinking in this way brings you inner happiness and satisfaction. This wish-fulfilling thought is an unbelievably precious gift that brings all the positive qualities of mind and all the realizations, inner happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

Even a billion dollars or all the wealth of this earth cannot buy this experience. But if you generate these peerless, positive thoughts, then whatever problem occurs, if somebody gets angry at you, abuses you, you have some failure, something doesn’t succeed, your friend changes his mind and doesn’t like you anymore, someone who loves you changes his mind, etc., this way of thinking really helps. Therefore, these situations become so precious, become wish-fulfilling, causing happiness. Training the mind in this practice is the best psychology, and with this one’s mind is positive all the time. Then, you are able to bring so much peace and happiness to the world, to your family, to all your neighbors, to the country, and to the whole world. Like this, your life is like the sun shining—one sun dispelling all darkness and giving all warmth and light to every corner of the world, so that everyone can enjoy it. Your life shines on all living beings, giving peace and happiness not only to numberless human beings, but to numberless animals. That’s incredible! If one is able to think like this, then there is no better life than this; this is the best life, the most satisfying life. If one thinks like this, then it doesn’t matter when death happens, because your mind is totally happy and satisfied, and when death comes it is no problem at all, you have no regrets, and you are so joyful and full of bliss.

The thought of bodhicitta is letting go of the “I” and cherishing others, letting go of the “I,” from which all sufferings come, and cherishing others, from which all happiness comes. All one’s past, present, and future happiness comes from cherishing others. This is the most precious thought. By training the mind in this, you completely illuminate the whole path explained by Buddha. The self-cherishing thought causes depression and all the problems, all the delusions: attachment, anger, and, especially, the root of all sufferings—ignorance—which is not knowing the ultimate nature of the “I” and ultimate nature of the aggregates.

Each time you are kind to others, at that time there is not the slightest thought about your own happiness. Instead, you are thinking about others’ happiness more. When you are only thinking about your own happiness, thinking that is the most important thing, you are actually being dictated to by your own ego.

My dearest one,
How are you? I received your letter and read it well. It seems it is a problem not only for you but countless beings. I will check on this more, but it might help to cut down on sugar and sweets. Try this for three months and see if it changes. If the depression occurs only from time to time it will be difficult to tell, but if the depression comes quite often then it seems that reducing sugar and sweets for three months will help.

The best method is to use your depression. There are many meditations on thought transformation but the key thing is to use depression like a weapon, a bomb, against your self-cherishing thought. You performed non-virtuous actions in the past and depression is the result. The enemy, the self-cherishing thought, likes to harm you with depression. So, now you use the depression that the self-cherishing thought has given you in the same way—you hit back at the self-cherishing thought, which so far hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment, not even liberation from samsara, or to have any realizations. It has only made you to suffer in beginningless rebirths up to now.

As long as the ego dwells in your heart, it will be the same; it will hook so many problems to you, especially obstacles to practicing Dharma. It won’t allow you to have any attainments in the future: liberation or enlightenment. It will continuously make you suffer torture in samsara, keeping you in samsaric problems.

When depression comes use it against the ego, the self-cherishing thought, which has given you the depression. Then rejoice, “How wonderful it is to have depression, in that it can destroy the ego.” Rather than the ego defeating you, you defeat the ego. Rejoice how it’s wonderful to have depression. It means you have succeeded in the prayers you made in the past to experience all the sufferings of other sentient beings, especially the important one, the depression of all sentient beings. Think, “I am experiencing this for all sentient beings who are experiencing depression now and who will experience it in the future.” By experiencing this for others, for countless sentient beings, depression becomes the path for you to achieve enlightenment. That means it becomes the path to enlighten all sentient beings and the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. So, this should be your top meditation, the best one.

Therefore, depression becomes like a wish-granting jewel, the most precious one, fulfilling your own wishes and those of all sentient beings for happiness: the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras, suras, and intermediate state beings. So, look at it as positive. Use depression to destroy the ego, and experience depression for all sentient beings. In both ways, you use depression to generate and develop bodhicitta. In this way, it makes your life more meaningful than not having depression. If you did not have depression, your life would be filled with distractions and you wouldn’t practice Dharma sincerely, experiencing suffering for all sentient beings. Your depression gives you the opportunity to do that all the time.

Each time you experience suffering for all sentient beings you collect vast amounts of merit and purify your negative karma. It brings you closer to enlightenment each time you think, “I’m experiencing this depression on behalf of all sentient beings.” Depression makes you recognize other sentient beings’ suffering. When depression comes think, “This is the depression of all sentient beings.” Experience it for them. This is the best purification practice for you. Doing this every day, as depression arises, can become like many years of Vajrasattva retreat. If you do Vajrasattva retreat with worldly concern, it doesn’t even become Dharma. It may be difficult to be on the path to enlightenment and the generation of bodhicitta could be artificial and shallow. But here, with your depression, you see how much other sentient beings are suffering with depression, so you generate compassion for all living beings. If you use your depression for bodhicitta practice, experiencing suffering for others, many eons of negative karma are purified. In this sense, you are unbelievably lucky to have depression, as it’s bringing you closer to enlightenment.

Tibetan medicine might also help. Take 37 Aids to Enlightenment pills, three each week, for seven weeks.

I haven’t found any other mantras or meditations yet that might help.

With much love and prayer...