Vipassana and Depression

The development of skills (or even just an understanding) of Vipassana meditation is the perfect antidote to depressive feelings. Often, we are depressed because of our overdeveloped tendency to introvert — and for this reason we find Vipassana much easier than Samatha (tranquility) meditation.

Some faith is necessary if one is to benefit from even the theoretical understanding, as one must contemplate the deeper workings of mind based on second-hand experience — i.e. somebody else is telling us how our minds work. Fortunately, once one intellectually grasps the concepts, there is a tendency then to notice the more subtle events in one’s own experience.

Our sense of being is created through the objectification of sensory and mental objects. We are ‘something’ that sees, hears, feels, thinks, etc. We are composite beings — created out of a whole hierarchy of smaller parts.

When we become despondent and miserable, we can only do so whilst we hold the concept of a self. We have to maintain a sense of this self which we might compare with another, happier version. To maintain our depressive feelings we often face continuous reminders of any perceived failures in this self, like insecurities or difficulties in life. These difficulties might be truly overwhelming, yet often they would be completely manageable if we didn’t feel so wretched.

We become caught in cycles of dissatisfaction with our environment, which then invokes feelings of failure and overwhelming difficulty, and our depression becomes a ‘thing.’

With Vipassana, the meditator learns tools to deal with these cycles of overthinking (papanca). Recognizing that any sense of self is illusory, one’s ability to compare the current self with previous or future ideal selves is hindered. Further recognizing that the current sense of self is only ever created in the present, and cannot relate to any previous self, severs this fictional link between fictional simulacrum (inner concept of self).

Vipassana training enables one to directly tackle the arising of unpleasant states of being. A knowledge of karma will allow one to diagnose the source of mental turbulence with the necessary remedy or change arising within. Ultimately one learns to look directly at the thought, and question ‘who thinks this?’, turning the mind back upon itself. This is described beautifully in one sutra as acting like a lion, rather than a dog, when somebody throws a stick. A dog chases the stick whereas the lion looks directly at the thrower.

Be reassured that even if you know little about Vipassana it is a skill you have probably already developed to a degree. It really is easy to master if you are already a bit of an overthinker. ❤️🙏

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
— Dhammapada 1:1