And The Third Day

Today, I finally had my interview with the monk who teaches us. He mainly teaches us about Buddhism and Buddhist principles but because he worked in Australia as a Psychiatric nurse his teachings are influenced a lot by psychology and mental illness. The first question that I asked him was what he thought of meditation as a type of treatment. He very directly said that when he was working in the psychiatric hospital, patients were highly medicated and in some instances received shock treatment (ECT) and that it was thought back then that that was the only thing that could work in severe circumstances. This is when I thought to myself that nothing has really changed; at least not in India based on the experience I have made in Delhi. When I asked him what he thought theoretically about the idea of meditation as a form of treatment he said that there is no chance for psychotic patients to benefit from mediation. This is exactly what I was thinking all along. However, even though psychotic patients would not really benefit, he said that it might look different for people suffering from mild neuroses. He also told me that rather than meditation it is more realistic to help mentally ill people better understand their mind and help them find the nature of their mind so they know where their symptoms are coming from.

Lama Yeshe in the book “Becoming your own Therapist” says that “by knowing the nature of the mind, we can satisfy ourselves internally.” According to my understanding and what he is indicating is that a disturbed mind or in western terms a mental illness, can be cured by becoming aware of the nature of one’ s mind. This is easier said than done. On one side, there is the teacher monk who says that only people with slightly disturbed minds can be guided to gain the understanding of the nature of their minds and cure themselves from their disturbances. On the other side, there is Lama Yeshe who says that anybody regardless of their condition can be cured by gaining that understanding. Obviously, the greater disturbed a mind is, the more time it will take for people to reach that understanding. He also says that the understanding has to be reached by the people themselves, he can only guide. After what I have seen at VIMHANS, I examine this statement carefully because saying that EVERYBODY can get there is very brave. Theoretically, I really believe that even though it can be very difficult, this state can be reached by everybody. However, practically, the story might look a bit different for people suffering from psychosis.

Looking closer at the question what it means to learn the nature of one’s mind, I realized it is not meditation that will bring us that understanding. Lama Yeshe in his book as well as my monk teacher both said that in order to reach the understanding of the nature of one’s mind is through reflecting and analyzing one’s mind. The Analysis and reflection can be done with the support and understanding of Buddhist Principles. Questions that we would keep asking ourselves would be why we have those neurotic thoughts, where do they come from and when have they developed. After having done enough of analysis and reflection, we will hopefully understand the nature of those neurotic thoughts and they will disappear. This description is much easier said than done but if it comes down to an explanation then this is how you would put it.

In addition to helping mentally ill people understand the nature of their mind, meditation can at least help to relief those people from their symptoms temporarily. There are no studies that I am aware of but the monk teacher said that even though he doesn’t believe meditation would cure mentally ill people or diminish their disturbing thoughts but meditation has the potential to provide people with some relief from their symptoms.  In meditation, the goal is to control one’s mind. During meditation, we become aware of our thoughts, acknowledge them and push them away in order to focus/concentrate on one object. The object can be many different things depending on the meditation. Having the object to focus on keeps us simply concentrated on one individual thing instead of being subjected to our uncontrolled neurotic thoughts. After some practice when a neurotic person is capable to successfully meditate, the meditation might give that person a break from her or his neurotic thoughts for the duration of the meditation. This way, meditation can be used as a tool to release people from their symptoms rather than as treatment to cure their illness.