Helmers, Pilar
Transforming depression: cessation of depression through Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice
In the current context of life in the early twenty-first century, the mental illness of depression affects over 350 million people of differing ages, is the major cause of disability, and is one of the major contributors to the burden of disease worldwide. The state of depression causes widespread unhappiness and suffering and continues to call for increased resources and efforts to understand its causes and develop a treatment for its ‘cure’.
This paper presents a first person account of the arresting of depression through the application of Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice. Whilst applying mindfulness, the mental and emotional mechanisms and conditions that arise together in the mind to create depression were observed, and the nature of those mechanisms understood. This permitted an interruption to the habitual cognitive processes resulting in significant transformation of the practitioner’s relationship to the event of depression, further inhibiting, at a key moment, the arising of conditions of mind to support an episode of depression.
Following the first person account, the paper will orient and describe the experience through a Buddhist lens, thus providing an alternative (although ancient) to the mainstream western medical model of depression and its treatment, which may offer sufferers a different view and understanding of their suffering, paving a way to its cessation.
Transforming depression: cessation of depression through Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice
In the current context of life in the early twenty-first century, the mental illness of depression affects over 350 million people of differing ages, is the major cause of disability, and is one of the major contributors to the burden of disease worldwide. The state of depression causes widespread unhappiness and suffering and continues to call for increased resources and efforts to understand its causes and develop a treatment for its ‘cure’.
This paper presents a first person account of the arresting of depression through the application of Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice. Whilst applying mindfulness, the mental and emotional mechanisms and conditions that arise together in the mind to create depression were observed, and the nature of those mechanisms understood. This permitted an interruption to the habitual cognitive processes resulting in significant transformation of the practitioner’s relationship to the event of depression, further inhibiting, at a key moment, the arising of conditions of mind to support an episode of depression.
Following the first person account, the paper will orient and describe the experience through a Buddhist lens, thus providing an alternative (although ancient) to the mainstream western medical model of depression and its treatment, which may offer sufferers a different view and understanding of their suffering, paving a way to its cessation.