My Days at Tushita: The Beginning

This is my first day at Tushita. All of this has to be posted afterwards on the blog because I had to give them my computer so I had no internet access for the duration of the 10 day course.

Obviously, I had expectations even though I tried very hard not to have them. This is only the first day but I have to admit that I feel a little disappointed already. However, I am totally aware of the fact that it is way too soon to judge so I try not to. Yesterday at the registration, we were all given a book called “Becoming your own therapist” so this is when I knew I am at the right place and my disappointment vanished a bit. The only disappointment was the teacher. Having had many good and bad teachers and professors, I am very fast to judge whether or not the person who teaches is good or not. Maybe he will get better along the way or I will learn how to appreciate the aspects of his teaching style. For now, I felt like he is not very engaging and his voice is very monotone so my ability to focus and take everything in that he says is very limited. I had to attend many classes at the hospital and a lot of them weren’t very good. The experience at the hospital has drained my energy and my ability to focus. Otherwise, I think I would not be so hard on the teacher.

Being at Tushita, the connection between psychological wellbeing, the influence of the environment and the ability to meditate became clearer. I definitely still don’t know how a psychological treatment using meditation would look like but I am increasingly more convinced that mental patients can be treated with meditation and the right environment. Tushita is located on the top of Dharamshala and is probably the most peaceful place I have ever been to. Having this type of environment and the time and ability to work on mediation skills bring the prerequisites for a success story. At the same time, the environment alone or the meditation alone will not do it alone. It also takes a lot of effort and dedication from my personal side. Having said that, people who are not as fortunate to be here and don’t have the time to give meditation their entire effort are not even given a chance to cure themselves from their mental problem. The peaceful environment plus a person/a teacher who teaches you meditation are a necessity and a luxury which is not available for a lot of people.

Anyway, I am not trying to be too negative. I am simply exploring potential options that might help people cure their mental illness. One important thing that I learned in one of the classes is that the brain and the mind are totally separate entities. However, they are very closely related to each other. Treatments such as ECT or medication in case of depression have mostly effect on the brain. The medication and ECT try to fix the chemical imbalance in the brain but they don’t work on the mind. I believe that the mind has a much stronger influence on the brain than the brain has on the mind. Therefore, unless we don’t try to fix the mind, we will not find the solution to the problem. Fixing the physical part such as the chemical imbalance in the brain is only the beginning of starting to take care of the problem. The mind has to be taken at least as seriously.