mental illness n buddhism

Taiwanpolitics SG

any relationship between this 2 ?

An Eternal Now SG

Can you be more precise about your question?

Are you seeking for a Buddhist explanation of mental illness? Generally mental illnesses spiritually speaking can be caused by mental karma. Lets say you create mental trauma to someone else, you create mental karma as well.

Taiwanpolitics SG

sorry for being unspecific abt my question , I mean in buddhism , wad causes mental illnesses ?

Skibi SG

Originally posted by Taiwanpolitics:
sorry for being unspecific abt my question , I mean in buddhism , wad causes mental illnesses ?

Don't worry. There is no link.

Mental illness are just like any other ordinary physical illness like heart attack, cancer etc...

bohiruci SG

hi taiwanpolitics

Buddha did talk abt mental illness

Everyone suffering from mental illness ,only the mental patient is one who have let the mind run wild of imagination

Yogacara school in buddhism talks alot on the formation of such hallucination and how
it affect the way we see this world

Mind creates this world and all pheonomenon in this world

so mental illness have to use their own determination to comes out of the "vision" to heal themselves

Buddhism only serve as a guide to them.
if one decline to see those "vision" as illusion
its quite hard to recover from mental illness ...

shine is one of the movie if one wants to understand on mental illness

An Eternal Now SG

There are a lot of different kinds of mental illnesses, and each of them may have different karmic causes. There are three kinds of karma: Action, Speech, Mind karma. Those with heavy negative mind karma may results in mental illnesses.. but as for their specific causes, you may need to ask some venerables or teachers. They know better. My dharma teacher used to speak of some of the causes, but I forgot.

Taiwanpolitics SG

oo

I suffer from some mild form of social phobia .

whenever i buy food , i talk in such a soft voice until they cannot hear .

whenever i walk into a toilet , i feel uncomfortable .

i also have stage fright ......

is this karma ?

Taiwanpolitics SG

dirty thoughts , evil intention ( mind )

vulgarities , gossips ( speech )

killing , arson ( action )

u mean this are karma ?

bohiruci SG

let me sincerely try to answer ur concern Smile

whenever i buy food , i talk in such a soft voice until they cannot hear .
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it is called paranoid ..it couldnt be a result of karma.. it is more of insecurity of something or u are more introvert

whenever i walk into a toilet , i feel uncomfortable .

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perhaps u have bad experience in the toilet .. i cant said for sure

i also have stage fright ......
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everyone have stage fright .. i was like u until i take up story-telling competition

today going up the stage to speak isnt a problem

i like to talk and treat the audience as ppl who owe me money
(sources? look at dale carnegie book -how to win friends and influence ppl )

is this karma ?

An Eternal Now SG

I wouldn't consider your case as mental illness... but perhaps habitual tendencies that you developed from young or even brought over from previous lifetime.

As for fear, there could be past live causes as well but I am not too sure what are the exact causes. But these are karmic propensities... so in a sense you can say they are karmic forces.

Yes, these are all karmic action that will result in karmic consequences. What is karma? Karma means action, intentional action. And every intentional action will have a karmic result, and the outcome depends on whether the karma is wholesome or unwholesome. Or perhaps it is pure karma... or the karma that leads to liberation.

Those you said above are all unwholesome karma. They create bad Action, Speech and Mind karma. Not only that it can be habit forming... the seeds can stay in our 8th consciousness and resurface as habitual tendencies even in future lifetimes. Therefore purification of our minds are important.

justdoit77 SG

One of the cause of mental illness is because in the past you disturbed people who is practicing. For example, when one is meditating or studying buddhism teaching, and you purposely go and make noise and do something so their mind cannot focus, then you have sowed the seed.

Herzog_Zwei SG

Phobia and compulsive action behaviour are forms of mental illness. But then again as Sigmend Freud had said before" Who doesn't have a form of mental illness?"

Enlightenment and realisation are one facet of the human mental activity and mental disorder is another facet of the whole human mental activity. In a way, they are not related as they are virtually at the opposite ends of the spectrum. You can't controlled when and how does illness happen and no mental activity such as enlightement and realisation can prevent a mental illness from happening.

TehJarVu SG

mental illness like delusional disorder is due to chemical imbalance in the body (over production of dopermine).
the patient needs medication and there is no way s/he can use her/his determination to come out of the delusions.

Herzog_Zwei SG

Can be chemical imbalance and can also be a misconnection of the "neural wiring". Sorry, can't remember the biological name again.

An Eternal Now SG

That's right some mental illness have biological and numerous other causes therefore we must not rule out psychiatric treatment. It's not just a matter of using determination. Of course if one really practises Buddhism it will be of a great help.

An Eternal Now SG

Someone who is enlightened and is clearly abiding in this enlightened state every moment cannot possibly have mental illnesses. Why? Because most mental illnesses or pathologies have their causes in various aspects of the ego, as I have mentioned before the different stages which a person psychologically undergo as he age. Someone who is deeply enlightened transcends identification from ALL aspect of the ego, he transcends identification with everything, therefore transcends all mental illnesses. This aspect of the enlightened consciousness is trans-personal. Similarly any chemical imbalance or physical symptoms is not going to affect a person enlightened to a high degree.

Herzog_Zwei SG

Wrong again, a mentally ill person can have no ego and yet cannot be enlightened. So again, on the other hand, an enlightened person can still be afflicted by mental illness to a very minor degree.

justdoit77 SG

While it is true that some mental illness is due to some sort of defects with the physical brain, be it brain injury or chemical imbalance, but what is the cause of this.
A person die because the heart beat stop, but why some people heart beat stop at 100 years old on bed and some stop at 11 years old on the road.
It is karma that made everyone so different from each other.

In my opinion, mental illness can be either physical or non-physical.
The physical mental illness only affects our physical brain, causing the patients to be slow response, loss of memory, lack of logical thinking and so on, but eventually will disappear when the person reborn.

But non-physical mental illness (3 poisons) affects our habits and our conduct. It is the non-physical mental illness that all buddhists want to get rid of.
What is the point we gain so much buddhism knowledge and store in our physical brain if we don't use it to cure our non-physical mental illness. The brain is only a physical form that will disappear in a few decades.

An Eternal Now SG

Sorry, what I meant is, a person who is enlightened to a high degree, he won't be affected by any conditions at all.

A mentally ill person is attached to certain aspects of the ego. Ego here does not mean being 'egotistic', it just means being identified with various things as 'self'. An enlightened person is completely disidentified with the 5 skhandas (the five aggregates) and have completely seen through the illusion of the self.

Herzog_Zwei SG

I am also referring to the aspect of self in my explaination but then again, mental responses reflect not on only chemical reactions in the brain as well as synapses.