Howard
Cohn (
link ) offers a public meditation group every Tuesday evening in the Mission district of San Francisco. This last week I had, unusually, an evening off, so I went to sit with him and his students. It's getting into the meat of
SF's winter, with a growing number of cold, foggy or overcast days, so
Cohn took the opportunity to speak about depression and meditation.
He began by throwing out the provocative assertion that perhaps 90% of individuals are walking around with some level of depression. Not meaning that so many people are disabled by depression, but that so many folks are suffering from extended moments of what might be termed a suppression of aliveness. This muting of the possibilities of connection and awareness stems from a largely subliminal belief in one's own insufficiency. We feel/tell ourselves to be lacking, and then the world looks either similarly bleak or impossibly better then us. Our physical energy disappears and our willingness to be engaged (who wants to be engaged with
that?)
dribbles away.
So what does one do?
One technique he offered was simply examining the evidence. What proof is there that one is fundamentally
lacking? Taking the claim of existential failure at face value, how would you argue it in court? Put together a brief for the judge and see if it holds up.
Cohn's claim was that it never will, that depression actually sustains itself by tricking you into not looking into its own assertions. And, the act of looking itself is curative, since when you are looking
at depression, you forget to identify yourself
with depression.
Then the other practice is that which meditation teachers: look inward at the raw experience of depression, and really see what it is. What are the emotions? The sensations? The thoughts? How do they weave together to create that which we label "depression"? And what happens when we actually investigate it? What you'll inevitably and eventually find is that depression is a tinker toy construction that at base has no essential substance, any more than the house you build with these toys is really and essentially a house.
This is not to say that depression isn't real or painful, or that meditation is the only real treatment.
Cohn made the point that when depression settles into the body, becomes locked in there, then often a person will need other help (medication, body work). But what one comes to realize in turning towards depression and asking it some serious questions, is that it's not what it says it is. That when the curtain is pulled aside and the real nature of the Wizard of Oz is revealed, you can start regaining the energy of your that has been trapped up in depression.
(Resource:
Domanassa is a blog which focuses on depression from a Buddhist perspective.)
He began by throwing out the provocative assertion that perhaps 90% of individuals are walking around with some level of depression. Not meaning that so many people are disabled by depression, but that so many folks are suffering from extended moments of what might be termed a suppression of aliveness. This muting of the possibilities of connection and awareness stems from a largely subliminal belief in one's own insufficiency. We feel/tell ourselves to be lacking, and then the world looks either similarly bleak or impossibly better then us. Our physical energy disappears and our willingness to be engaged (who wants to be engaged with that?) dribbles away.
So what does one do?
One technique he offered was simply examining the evidence. What proof is there that one is fundamentally lacking? Taking the claim of existential failure at face value, how would you argue it in court? Put together a brief for the judge and see if it holds up. Cohn's claim was that it never will, that depression actually sustains itself by tricking you into not looking into its own assertions. And, the act of looking itself is curative, since when you are looking at depression, you forget to identify yourself with depression.
Then the other practice is that which meditation teachers: look inward at the raw experience of depression, and really see what it is. What are the emotions? The sensations? The thoughts? How do they weave together to create that which we label "depression"? And what happens when we actually investigate it? What you'll inevitably and eventually find is that depression is a tinker toy construction that at base has no essential substance, any more than the house you build with these toys is really and essentially a house.
This is not to say that depression isn't real or painful, or that meditation is the only real treatment. Cohn made the point that when depression settles into the body, becomes locked in there, then often a person will need other help (medication, body work). But what one comes to realize in turning towards depression and asking it some serious questions, is that it's not what it says it is. That when the curtain is pulled aside and the real nature of the Wizard of Oz is revealed, you can start regaining the energy of your that has been trapped up in depression.
(Resource: Domanassa is a blog which focuses on depression from a Buddhist perspective.)