Someone asked recently what to do when the mind is in a state of anxiety or depression, and it’s hard to switch the mode and think positive thoughts because the mind and body are paralyzed. How do we train our mind to not buy into the negative thoughts – the fear, worry, sadness, etc.?
Impossible! At least, initially. If we haven’t trained our mind it’s too hard to ignore them when they’re all screaming. I use the analogy of your head being full of roommates – it’s a good analogy – and they’re all very old, out of control roommates. Imagine living in a house of fifty crazy roommates and trying to ignore them!
Yes, eventually, when you really start to practice, you are able to ignore them – or stay steady in the face of them and learn to interpret them differently, argue with them – but we’ve got to go one step at a time, we’ve got to go one step at a time.
If you can’t, then the first thing to do if you’re so overwhelmed by the depression or the anger or the fears is go find someone to hold you: find someone to talk to, find someone to help you hold your crazy emotions. We need good friends, you know? We’re not meant to be Spartan here – we’re not trying to prove anything.
If you have got people – beloved friends, a therapist, somebody – rely upon them, go to them, hold them. We need that, we need that, like a little child. When you’re little – well, even when we’re older, sorry! – look what we do. Think about this.
When something goes wrong and we’re having a panic attack like when I was a kid and my sister Janet would be mean to me: I’m cross-eyed without my glasses, my eye would go right in, and all she had to say was, “Cockeye!” and that was the end of me, I was destroyed.
So what did I do? I didn’t try to sit there and fix it, I wasn’t capable. I made a beeline for Mummy. I’d look up at her: “Mummy, Mummy, Janet called me cockeye!”
Then what did she do? Listen to this – please listen. This is what’s so powerful. All she had to say was, “Oh, sweetheart, it’s all right!” and give me a hug. And guess what? I believed her! All she had to do was hold me and tell me everything’s okay. And it was.
This is what we need to do for ourselves: be our own mother!
So if you can’t access your own mother to say, “It’s all right, Robina, you’ll be okay!” to help yourself through it with your virtuous thoughts, which you have confidence in: your clarity, your wisdom, your knowledge, your ability to know that these deluded thoughts do not define you, they are not in the core of your being, they are not in your true nature – if you can’t do this yourself, find a friend.
But we do have the ability to do this, you know? We’ve got to use these other parts of our mind, the virtuous roommates, but the trouble is the negative roommates are shouting so loud and we just believe everything they say; we get sucked into them and we can’t even argue with them.
That’s the real skill that we need to learn: to use the intelligence within us, our other roommates, to argue with the crazies.
This is all Buddhism is – using the tools that we’ve cultivated: the impermanence view, the karma view, the view about what the mind is, the view about emptiness, the view about bodhichitta: these are the tools we use to argue with the crazies; being kind to ourselves, not being mean.
If you have to take a pill, take a pill – do whatever you can – but the view that all the unhappy thoughts are not who we really are, that alone is so profound.
It’s like you see weeds in the garden and you panic. Well, you know you can pull them out – it might take you a while but we know it’s possible. The trouble is we believe that this depression is real and permanent and will never end, that it’s at the core of my being: That’s not true! You have to have confidence in that.
You have to be your own mother. Bring the virtuous thoughts out and be kind to yourself: “It’s okay, Robina, you’ll manage it. It’s all right, you know, you’re okay.” You talk to yourself like this. It sounds like Pollyanna, but it’s not. It’s profound because these thoughts don’t define us. They’re there, they’re loud, yep, but they distort, they exaggerate, and they don’t define who we are at our core.
We persevere through it because we know there is light at the end of the tunnel. Every word I’m saying is words I use to myself when I’m practicing like this. This is spiritual practice, this is being a Buddhist, this is being your own therapist.
I get these tools from studying and listening to Buddha’s teachings. I’m not making up these words. These are all Buddhist words, I’m just using an Australian voice to say them, that’s all.