So, I have a strong hunch that there must be a root emotional cause of anxiety and not in a worldly manner (*like not related to one's life story). More like an error in judgment of relation to oneself & others. First candidate that comes to my mind is not being kind towards oneself which produces lack of confidence, which in turn produces anxiety given unfavourable external conditions (*like meeting new people etc.)*. I have witnessed meditation to ease anxiety, but only seems like a partial temporary solution. What would be your understanding of the root cause of anxiety, and any possible practices to resolve it on more permanently?

I practice Vipassana meditation and am currently going through a period of anhedonia and I am trying to understand if my depression is a sankhara or if it is simply a result of my mind reacting and not being equanimous in my everyday life. While practicing Vipassana I don't have a problem following the instructions or have an overly difficult time practicing equanimity so it doesn't make sense that I would be able to cause that much suffering in my every day life because of my reactivity. But then if it's not my mind reacting to something it means it has simply arisen for whatever cause. I find it difficult to navigate the personal accountability of what one experiences (I caused my depression by not living a fulfilling life, not providing for my needs etc) and my depression simply being caused by the inescapable suffering of life and/or sankharas. Because then it does mean that we can control our well being by changing something outside of ourselves which contradicts the idea that we are 100% responsible for the pain we carry, but that's not true is it? We are hurt and traumatised by the world and relationships and while we then have responsibility to not generate more suffering for ourselves we didn't cause the harm that was done to us in the first place which would mean that certain pain and sadness that we carry does not come from us. I realise that ultimately, whether our suffering comes from a reaction, a sankhara or from wherever else the procedure of taking care of and approaching the suffering will be by the same technique according to Vipassana, namely through observing the sensations and by practicing equanimity. But is that enough? How do you know if you need to change things in your life to be able to be well? If you practice you might feel a sense of relief and a little more clarity but what if that's not enough to actually feel a sense of meaningfulness and a desire to take action, to do things? Hope this made sense, if anyone has any insight they'd like to share around this topic I'd be deeply appreciative, thank you.

Please provide sources from the original text or your own experiences and understandings of how to make progress in overcoming background negative feelings? For years I have been greatly harmed by harboring these feelings in the back of my mind which has not only created great suffering but altered the course of my life. Doing some mindfulness work made me realize that these feelings are there in my mind due to past experiences, and are harming me more than anything else in my life. How can I overcome, even slightly, this kind of mindset?

I am currently in a state of being that I don't understand properly. My main concern is that even though I am able to bring about major changes in my mind in a relatively short amount of practice, I am nonetheless deeply unaware and unfocused in every day life. For example, a lot of my time is wasted by me being in my head... Thinking unnecessarily situation, concepts, even Dhamma etc. but I end up not getting done much. Every morning with the intent of focusing on tasks, I end up doing just an hour or two hours work at best. Even other normal people are much more focused in their 9-5 jobs where they are working eight hours - and many of them don't even know about meditation etc. Other examples - - the slightest discomfort makes me feel strongly averse and then suffer disproportionately. - small amounts of substances have drastic mental effects - alcohol, caffeine, marijuana etc. I should mention some background info - I don't consume alcohol, weed etc. I am addicted to pornograhphy though. I am socially anxious, with slight aspergers and slight depression. Dhamma-wise, I am quite familiar with buddhism and more broadly, science-philosophy-spirituality. Edit : To clarify, I want to know more about this state of mind and the corresponding defilements. Further, what are the root components of this state (*like for example if someone has a habit of quarreling with people it is probably because s/he has lacking metta, excess anger and conceit*) . Have you experienced something similar, and if yes, how did you overcome it?

Background - My sister's son did not work at all in his life and has been taking anti-depressants for many years now. My sister must be very sad and worried about him constantly, but she never talked about it to anyone. His father decided to get him help with meditation and went to this place called "Nirmaya" in Pune city, India. My sister did not want to go for this. But because she was not strong enough to resist him, she had to go along with it. They arranged for long distance meditation for him by uploading his picture in their computer and told him to meditate at home. They told him to let them know whenever he meditates so that they can send positive vibrations to him through his picture on their computer. They charged fee for every call. They also said if parents do the meditation, it will be beneficial. My sister started doing meditation along with her son to show support for him. Nothing happened to the son and the father, but she started feeling very sad and tired and low energy. No one thought deeply why it is happening to her. She thought that she is depressed so decided to see local Psychiatrist. In her first visit she mentioned her worries about her son to the doctor and nothing else. Doctor did not ask any history about her life and put her on two anti-depressants, one anti-anxiety drug and multivitamin tablets. At this point my sister is taking all those medicines and doing meditation. She was already a very silent person but after this she became more silent. She continued to have sadness and low energy. So she called the doctor and reduced the dose of anti-depressants. She became sick with flu and could not function at all. During her sickness she stopped meditation. Once she came out of the sickness, she started meditation again. She also requested her doctor to reduce her anti-depressants dose. Doctor stopped one anti-depressant and multivitamin tablet. My sister did not feel better. She stopped taking the anti-depressants. She continued with meditation. This whole thing started with meditation on June 20th, 2022. October 17, 2022, she committed suicide in the morning. What happened to her? Did meditation affect her in such a way that she did not want to live any longer? Should all the places that recommend meditation be held responsible for not giving enough warnings to people they are supposed to help? Has it become money making machine with very little studies about meditation and anti-depressants drugs? If you can answer my questions truthfully, I will appreciate it. Thanks. Jayshree Deshmukh

As we know, the Eightfold Path begins with Right View, and then from Right View follows Right Intention. Right View - belief in suffering, the relief from suffering and the Triple Gem; from this follows Right Intention - the "desire" or resolve to follow the Buddha Way. (This is of course closer to the Theravada belief; the Mahayana belief is too esoteric to describe in words, or to have any logical progression, but is a sudden overwhelming experience of "feeling" one is totally Buddhist. Correct? I'd like both Theravada and Mahayana perspectives on this question.) Here is the problem: we know that the Buddha suffered hardship in this world, including sickness and requiring a physician at times. We know that he had enemies who wished him harm. How then is it possible to believe that the Buddha was the happiest or most fortunate person ever to exist? Surely, out of all of history, with billions of people, there must have been somebody with fewer sicknesses and fewer enemies! How does one believe, WHY does one believe, that he was totally free from misery or mental anguish? Does one believe this merely because it is taught as doctrine? How is it possible to believe that he was "happy" or "the happiest" as we, being mere humans, would understand the term? How is it possible to believe that he was "most fortunate" or "most blessed" as we would understand it? If he was not "the happiest", "the most fortunate", or other similar expressions, as -we- would understand them, then how does a mere mortal with real-world human struggles form the resolve to follow the dharma unconditionally? Should one believe that Buddhism can bring earthly blessings, or not? And if not, then how can a human being who suffers from a desire for/lack of earthly blessings form the motivation to follow the dharma whole-heartedly? In the simplest terms, why would an ordinary human being with ordinary struggles want to live the life of the Buddha? Is it even possible for an ordinary human being with a difficult life to want to be like the Buddha?

*(English is not my mother tongue, sorry in advance if I make mistakes)* I am currently reading a philosophical book that I stumbled upon by chance, a unique work by a young (23yo) Italian of the early 20th century, after what he killed himself: *Persuasion and Rhetoric* by Carlo Michelstaedter. I don't know if anyone here has read it? I hope so, because I may not be the clearest. At first I must confess that I didn't understand it at all, but as I progressed through the book I began to see what he was talking about: I haven't finished his book yet, but I can already tell - it's amazing. There's so much to say, I'll try to keep it synthetic. This book had been sold to me as "the most depressive philosophical book (that my interlocutor had read)". I'm not disappointed, I got my money's worth. But in fact, its analysis is incredibly deeper than that. Let me be clear: the more I read it, the more I am struck by his observation: his whole book seems to me to be about dukkha. It's really incredible, I'm pretty sure he's never heard of Buddhism and yet his whole book is a wonderful analysis of dukkah, this cosmic suffering-unsatisfaction hidden in the hollow of all phenomena, like a cursed mark on (conventional) life. He analyses both dukkha caused by boundless desire, dukkha caused by the impermanence of all things, and dukkha caused by conditioning itself. This is wonderful. I would like to quote entire passages from the book to show you that a Buddhist monk could approve everything. My point is that he committed suicide after this book. And when you read it you can understand why, it's even almost logical: he didn't know Buddhism and therefore the radical teaching of Buddha: certainly dukkha exists and is everywhere, but it is not absolute; a way out is possible (nirvana). Except that Carlo didn't know this way out, and when one realized only dukkha, what's the point of living? The problem is that I recently read a very good article (PS 5) in the blog 'Politically Incorrect Dharma' about the difficulty of reaching enlightenment: in this day and age, in fact, hardly anyone achieves nirvana. Therefore, even if we can believe the testimonies of the historical enlightened about the existence of a way out (nirvana), when the chances are infinitesimal that we reach it, for us, it is as if there is no way out. From that point on, how can we not be depressed when we have (at least partially) realized dukkha? I'm not talking about a purely intellectual understanding, but a real beginning of realisation. How not to end up like Carlo, or completely depressed at the very least? ​ PS 1: At the risk of repeating myself, I have chosen only one part of the book's topics here, apart from the absence of solution (nirvana) because of his ignorance of Buddhism, his whole book sounds deeply Buddhist to me, as it delivers a brilliant and profound analysis of impermanence, desire (tanha), conditioning, life, phenomena and suffering-dissatisfaction. ​ PS 2: >“Are you persuaded of what you do or not? Do you need something to happen or not in order to do what you do? Do you need the correlations to coincide always, because the end is never in what you do, even if what you do is vast and distant but is always in your continuation? Do you say you are persuaded of what you do, no matter what? Yes? Then I tell you: tomorrow you will certainly be dead. It doesn't matter? Are you thinking about fame? About your family? But your memory dies with you,with you your family is dead. Are you thinking about your ideals? You want to make a will? You want a headstone? But tomorrow those too are dead, dead. All men die with you. Your death is an unwavering comet. Do you turn to god? There is no god, god dies with you. The kingdom of heaven crumbles with you, tomorrow you are dead, dead. Tomorrow everything is finished—your body, family, friends, country, what you’re doing now, what you might do in the future, the good, the bad, the true, the false, your ideas, your little part, god and his kingdom, paradise, hell, everything, everything, everything. Tomorrow everything is over—in twenty four hours is death. > >Well, then the god of today is no longer yesterday’s, no longer the country, the good, the bad, friends, or family. You want to eat? No, you cannot. The taste of food is no longer the same; honey is bitter, milk is sour, meat nauseating, and the odor, the odor sickens you: it reeks of the dead. You want a woman to comfort you in your last moments? No, worse: it is dead flesh. You want to enjoy the sun, air, light, sky? Enjoy?! The sun is a rotten orange, the light extinguished, the air suffocating. The sky is a low, oppressive arc. . . .No, everything is closed and dark now. But the sun shines, the air is pure, everything is like before, and yet you speak like a man buried alive, describing his tomb. And persuasion? You are not even persuaded of the sunlight; you cannot move a finger, cannot remain standing. The god who kept you standing,made your day clear and your food sweet, gave you family, country, paradise—he betrays you now and abandons you because the thread of your philopsychia (love of life) is broken. > >The meaning of things, the taste of the world, is only for continuation’s sake. Being born is nothing but wanting to go on on: men live in order to live, in order not to die. Their persuasion is the fear of death. Being born is nothing but fearing death, so that, if death becomes certain in a certain future, they are already dead in the present. All that they do and say with fixed persuasion, a clear purpose, and evident reason is nothing but fear of death– ‘indeed, believing one is wise without being wise is nothing but fearing death.” ​ PS 3: >“Likewise, however little man, in living, demands as just to himself, his duty toward justice remains infinite. The right to live cannot be paid by finite labour, only by infinite activity. > >Because you participate in the violence of all things, all of this violence is part of your debt to justice. All of your activity must go toward eradicating this: to give everything and demand nothing; this is the duty—where duties and rights may be, I do not know.” ​ PS 4 (>Xbox): >“I know I want and do not have what I want. A weight hangs suspended from a hook; being suspended, it suffers because it cannot fall: it cannot get off the hook, for insofar as it is weight it suspends, and as long as it suspends it depends. > >\[...\] > >Its life is this want of life. If it no longer wanted but were finished, perfect, if it possessed its own self, it would have ended its existence. At that point, as its own impediment to possessing life, the weight would not depend on what is external as much as on its own self, in that it is not given the means to be satisfied. The weight can never be persuaded. > >Nor is any life ever satisfied to live in any present, for insofar as it is life it continues, and it continues into the future to the degree that it lacks life. If it were to possess itself completely here and now and be in want of nothing—if it awaited nothing in the future—it would not continue: it would cease to be life. > >So many things attract us in the future, but in vain do we want to possess them in the present.” ​ PS 5: [http://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-ive-almost-stopped-meditating-part\_15.html](http://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-ive-almost-stopped-meditating-part_15.html) **Edit:** *I just learned that Evola was a reader of Michelstaedter, that he wanted also to kill himself at 23, and that he changed his mind after reading the Pali Canon. Amazing. My hunch didn't come out of nowhere!*

Is there a fate worse than *oblivion* ? To forget, to be forgotten is there … Chant for anti-*nothingless* ?

Can a being be ignorant and depressed due to ignorance and commits suicide and is then reborn ignorant and depressed still and commits suicide again and again and so on indefinitely...? If so, is there any guarantee of it ever ending?

I am suffering from mind disturb. I am living alone one city for job purpose and my husband living with his family also for his job. All time he prefer his family more than me. If I told very small thing , he angry on me. Most of week he had some work in office that why I go to home and spending time with family. When I want to get him alone. That's time I fill that he has not much happy with like with he spent with his family. Now he don't want talk me so much. If I call him more than 2 in morning ,he fill irritating for this. If I told more than 2 to 3 for same thing , he angry on me. Please do suggest me advice from Buddhist traditions.

I don't know If I should ask this here or not. But I am depressed enough and not able to find a way to get out of this situation to live life happily as I used to do before. In my office I met a girl who is so stunning and met my expection which I wanted to see in my life partner. I then and there fallen in love with her without knowing anything about her life. After getting known by each other, I felt she also likes me. But something in my mind always ran than she is hiding something from me. One day somehow I get to know she is resigning and going to a different city. I asked her why she is resigning and leaving the city. She didn't ever told me the reason. She became very close to me and one day I asked her that I seriously think you are hiding something from me which I want to know. After requesting quit a few times, she told me that she is engaged and getting married to a guy who lives in the city she is going. After that day, I can barely eat, drink and even breathe. I love her with everything I have, I saw all my life with her, now I am lost. I am not finding any ways to live life happily. I feel like I lost my purpose of life. Is there any Lord Buddha's way that can take me out of this situation so that I can live again.

I will try to get my situation across without going into too much detail. About a year ago I moved with my mother to the other end of the country. For me it was an adventure and a good opportunity to progress in my career. For her it was the realization of a childhood dream. Growing up in the southern part of Germany she always longed for the north and the sea. She thoroughly enjoys her new life. For me, however, this was the worst year of my entire life. At the beginning I thought I merely had a bad case of homesickness but as the year progressed, I again and again slid into prolonged depressive episodes. I have been treated for depression before and I usually cope quite well with it, but now again, my situation has worsened to such a degree that I am convinced that I only have two possible courses of action: Get back to my hometown at the next opportunity or have my condition deteriorate until I am either hospitalized or until I harm myself. For the second time since my move to Hamburg, I get back to my hometown on a business trip. Last time I was there, it felt as though I had waken up from a bad dream. Nevertheless, I made the trip back. This time, I am sure that I will be unable to return. On the one hand I am filled with joy at the idea of returning home for good, on the other hand I cannot put into words how bad I feel about having to tell my mother that I am not going to come back to her. I have to emphasize that she is dependend on me in a way that is certainly to be considered out of the ordinary. She has lost a lot in her life which is why she clings so badly to our relationship. I know that the announcement is going to leave her devastated. I have about five years of buddhist practice and even though I think I have made a lot of progress and I know that I should aim to achieve upekkha, this is too big for me. This adds to the conflicting state, I am in at the moment. It feels as though, as if to add insult to injury, I am not only betraying my mother, but also failing in my endeavor to quite simply be a good person and to live according to the Noble Eightfold Path. I am not sure what kind of counsel I expect or want to receive in response to this post, but in any case I am heartfelt grateful for everybody who took the time to read through this. (And maybe has a few lines of her or his thoughts to share.) This has gotten longer than I intended it to be but I want to make sure to make my feelings understood as precisely as possible. By the way: I know that, quite apart from my feelings of spiritual shortcoming, depression constitutes a serious psychiatric condition. I do take medication and I have an appointment with my old Stuttgart-based psychiatrist two days from now. So I have taken care of that side of the coin. I would just like to try to evaluate and get feedback on my situation from a spiritual/Buddhist point of view. Thank you again!

I've seen some posts (questions _and_ answers) talking about how feeling bad... is bad. Basically that you shouldn't feel bad because of... whatever reason. It varies. My question is... how does that affect Buddhist teens? You know, the ones controlled by their emotions. Or the ones that are depressed. Will it not act like a Circle of Depresseion, where the person becomes more depressed by thinking that they are a bad Buddhist by being depressed? Like, you feel sad > you're not supposed to feel sad. You're supposed to be above that > you feel sadder because you are sad and you're not supposed to. How does newly converted buddhists face that? How does _any_ buddhist face that? Note that this question talks about laymen, and not munks.

How is mental health dealt with by Bhuddists? Is it believed to be a tangible issue e.g. imbalances of chemicals in the brain? Or an issue of the spirit (not sure if spirit is the right word)? Is treatment with western medicine (i.e. antidepressants/mood stabilizers, talk therapy) condemned or accepted? Is there *stigma* surrounding these illnesses like in the western culture? Is depression thought of an extreme form of dukkha or similar? How are hypomania/major depressive episodes handled?
I hope this makes sense, thanks :)

I have been reflecting on suffering and it seems to me that, since everyone is suffering and yet most people around me seem happy and contented, there is a way to live "happily" despite suffering that is accessible to everyone, Buddhist and non buddhist alike. None of these "happy" people I know are Buddhist - most have no spiritual beliefs. I'm mainly talking about the people at my work: I am the youngest and all the others are middle aged, I have a healthy body and most are overweight or have pain from age related problems, most have children which (from the sound of it) is a big source of suffering. I admit I have depression (I have had it since I was abused as a child by a parent and don't expect it will ever go away), and I only have one friend (probably due to depression too), but I feel that objectively I am suffering less than everyone I spend time with even though it doesn't seem that way. If this is true then I must be missing something really big, if I'm here trying to learn the way to escaping suffering but my colleagues are already halfway there without thinking about it. It seems like every day takes all my effort just to get through, but my colleagues are doing the same work happily AND raising kids (for example). My teacher seems to teach only that you can ignore suffering if you focus on imagined, "happy" scenarios, and that thia can even heal my depression if I brainwash myself enough, but I am questioning this as Buddha clearly said that only enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. What does Buddha teach about how to live well while suffering? Do I need to suffer more to toughen myself up against suffering - am I too "soft" because I've lived a life relatively free of pain? Have my older colleagues already suffered so much that they are beginning to be free of it? Is it really just about ignoring the negative emotions and exhaustion I constantly feel, and lying to myself until it becomes true? None of that seems right but my teacher seems so sure. (She is New Kadampa - I don't know where that sits under the various Buddhist umbrellas.)

Lord Buddha left the normal life due to frustration he got seeing those four instances of human life. In today when people get the same frustration they call it as depression, and motivate further to enjoy the normal life with lots of bonds and relationships. I'm confused in this scenario, what is the relationship between ordaining and depression ?