Depression in the Family

Depression in the Family

Date Posted:
October 2005

Rinpoche spoke with a student who explained that difficulties with depression and mental illness ran in her family.

We need to see self-cherishing as the enemy. Everything we do should go toward defeating this inner enemy, and reducing the amount of self-cherishing. This then gives space for bodhicitta to grow.

Anything that happens today, positive or negative, if we look at it all as positive then we don't see the negative. There is no room for the negative, and then we get happiness. The root is our own mind. When we are mistreated, we are purifying past negative karma, and it helps teach us compassion, which leads us straight to enlightenment. Anything that hurts our self-cherishing mind can help us to actualize the path. When you are patient with sentient beings, they receive no harm from you. So, if you put a positive label on all occurrences, the rest becomes easy.

Bodhisattvas have no thought that arises for themselves. They only think of others, with their whole heart: all sentient beings.

If it were a simple thing to remove all the sufferings from a being, then all beings would be enlightened. Therefore, even though there are numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas, there are still numberless sentient beings. This means it is not easy to help others. Buddha's job is to show us the path, to explain it.