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If you don’t know it’s a thought it becomes your reality. <Anon>

There seems to be as many “causes” for depression as there are people who experience it.

• I’ve lost my job.
• My marriage has fallen apart.
• It’s raining.
• I’m in alot of physical pain.

Having suffered from chronic depression in the past, I finally came to a stunning realization. None of the above cause depression. It’s the way I relate to what is happening, not what happens in the world “outside” myself, that causes depression.

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

and

We don’t attach to things; we attach to our stories about them- Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is

In other words, ego is the basic cause of depression, whether chronic or otherwise!

Put very simply, habitual patterns arise from grasping at a manufactured self, ego, that doesn’t actually exist.

Supporting this habitual grapsing is an ego-mind produces thoughts, discursive chit-chat and subconscious gossip and afflictive emotions of of all kinds based on its original mistake: the creation of a Self. And then, by extension, the Other. And we believe it. That’s the problem.

• “You don’t have a job. So you’re worthless and a loser.”
• “They have more than I do.”
• “I’m the best!”
• “I’m the worst!”

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For me, meditation practice is like coming home.

We’re on overload today. Too much information. Coming from too many directions. Look here! No, look over there! We feel angry. Fearful. Stressed out.

We need some first aid for the mind if we are going to engage life in a clear, knowing, awake way; if we are going to change our own karmic stream. There’s an important ripple effect of which we must now become aware — by changing our own karma, we help to change the world’s karma. This makes life more uplifted for everyone. And it is here that the role of meditation practice is so vital.

There are so many views today about what meditation is and what its purpose is. For example:

• The “self-help,” “self-improvement” genre: e.g. one blog post urged “Be better than yourself.” Or variations like “Be a better person.” (This genre is based on a poverty mentality about ourselves);
• Some say “Go beyond yourself;”
• Scientists who study meditation have outlined many health benefits; and
• Some think of meditation as a day at the beach.

I like to think of meditation as an exercise in focusing. We focus all day long! But on what are we focusing? It’s usually on constant stream of negativity. On our own story line.

To repeat, meditation is a form of focusing. But now we are gently focusing on our breath, and simply noticing the thoughts that arise. And then returning to gently focus on our breath. We can read about mind in myriad books and articles. But there’s only one way to actually get in touch with our own mind: through an exercise that shifts our focus. I call that shift “meditation practice.” It’s the shift that undercuts our habitual patterns, which cuts through our karmic stream.

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© The New Yorker Collection 2000 David Sipress from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation is no longer a strange word. Scientists have done many studies to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the misconceptions around meditation. It is necessary to deal with this because meditation is one of the tools that can help us to change the course of our lives, our karma. And if we are operating on misconceptions, then we cannot make proper use of this valuable tool.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche provides the context for this post

“If we follow thoughts back, we can see that they stem from an embedded karmic situation that has gone on for a very long time.”

“The point of buddhism is that we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma.”  (Classes 4 and 5)

By meditating, we see how the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can cut the creation and maintenance of that karma.

Before we get into details about how meditation can cut karma and allow us to control our lives, I want to first dispel some common misconceptions:
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