Psychological diagnoses meets the Divine Mother

 

Psychological diagnoses meets the Divine Mother

Simha: I named it diagnosis shopping not only because I see other people doing it, but because that was what I was doing myself. And yes, it is not just driven by a subconscious drive to label, but by sheer desperation for an explanation and solution.

Reading your history of self-diagnosis is like reading about my own. First being convinced of bipolar, then adhd, then borderline, then back to adhd, then bipolar again, before thinking I might just be a narcissist or even antisocial (sociopath)..

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome/trauma makes so much more sense, and also explains the chaotic, always changing nature of the symptom patterns that made it so damn difficult to figure out in the first place.

Anyway, embodied sitting and embodying Divine Mother seems to be healing it like nothing else I’ve experienced.

Baba: It is understandable that people do diagnosis shopping when one feels that life's not working. For some reason, though, I never did that. I would even say that for a long time after I found and started practicing the dharma, I didn't even take western medicine, incl. psychology at all seriously. I have since changed my view but from the moment I met the dharma, I felt so strongly that this is it, that this is the medicine to *whatever* is wrong with me or with others.

Though not at all skillfully, I have communicated this to you Simha as well since many years ago. I am sure it sounds arrogant to the reader but seeing Karl's struggles and his diagnosis shopping I felt like it was bullshit from beginning to the end, and I told him so. It must have been extremely difficult and unpleasant for him to hear that. I thought he was fooling himself. What a dangerous way to look at things... I admit that, and especially from someone like me who has very limited knowledge about these things, and yet look where we are now...

A dozen sangha members who started practicing Divine Mother as Amrita Sundari have told me it was exactly what they needed and what hits the right spot in terms of healing of trauma and whatever diagnoses they might have. I am not saying that Divine Mother practice can solve any mental/mental health problems but it clearly targets and begins to heal a whole bunch of issues that are stored in the meridian system.

And to remind the reader, I have spoken about the energetic difference between hindu and buddhist blessings for many years. They are similar yet different because they are designed differently. It's not black and white but this can definitely be stated.

To be specific, buddhist meditation is mainly focused on transforming self-based ignorance to embodied selfless wisdom. This process takes place in the so-called nadis and chakras of the subtle body, or the bhumis as they are also known. Hindu dharma and its blessings, on the other hand, are more visceral and can be felt more physically because in hinduism the separation between healing and existential wisdom (skt prajna) was never made, like it was in buddhism. Both paradigms have pros and cons but as we are discussing healing, it takes place in the meridians which is a different type of subtle body and the closest system to the physical body. That's why guru yoga with any hindu guru or Divine Mother practice, for example, have different effect than buddhist wisdom practices, be they in sutric or tantric form.

 

Removing Trauma from the Physical Body

 

Removing Trauma from

the Physical Body

Kim: It also makes sense how the scratches get into the physical cells there in the first place, from stress, trauma and all kinds of scary and anxious situations.

I was just wondering about the very first traumatic situations from early childhood, how they plant the very first seeds of painful selfing and how it builds up from there over time. Then a bit farther down the line comes tensing of the belly, shaky legs and panic attacks and so the energy system goes upside down in stressful situations. And then you start avoiding the stressful situations and the stress itself by various coping mechanisms. You just try to survive, scared of the world, scared of people. Or maybe you feel numb. Maybe you're not having panic attacks everyday and they may be mild when you have them but you have them nevertheless and they mess up your energy system everytime it happens. You just want to have a happy life and cannot understand why you feel anxious and scared so often because you've forgotten the early experiences and you have no idea what's going on in your psyche because you haven't learned even the most basic ways of keeping your mind healthy with various types of meditation.

In Pemako method we have different tools and practices to remove the self-based pain from both the mind and the body. Together with the deity practices of mahasiddha bhumi deities (list on the website), there is tapping of the body with mantras (very effective!) and these female deity practices called Dasha Mahavidya, that I borrow from hindu tantra. All in all, it looks like this formula works very well in the case of students like you who has already purified the 10 bhumis but is working on perfecting the ms bhumis.

Something that I've wondered recently is that I could give Dasha Mahavidya to the whole sangha, as I know there are people who have all the above issues and problems of trauma that affect them physically. I use hindu deities for this purpose together with buddhist ones because it makes the progress much faster than buddhist deities alone.

Shane:>I know I would have benefited a lot from having these mantras earlier on.

Kim: -Aa-ha! Well that is another interesting point that takes us all the way to the beginning of buddhism, and the reason why buddhism exists.

There is no end to methods that make people go round and round in meditative states and momentary experiences. Buddhadharma began because that had to stop because there is no other solution to solve self-based existence except to release self-based states, including those that make self-formations subside, into the body of reality (dharmakaya). But damn it, even in buddhist tradition those enticing states of gross bliss and vast planes of expanded consciousness crept right back in(!) and ever since until today a lot of buddhists are not actually practicing buddhism in the sense of liberating beings to dharmakaya but practice momentary states in samadhi, shamatha and jhana meditations. Too bad.

I don't blame anyone who wants to take a break of the mental wheel of repeated confusion (samsara) but it needs to be crystal clear that states of meditation are momentary experiences exactly like states of negative emotion. People are mislead to think that samadhi, shamatha or jhana meditations would solve existential issues. They can't and they don't so if you ask me, if you are in this for "real" and you wish to really know yourself as a living and breathing buddha, forget all practices that are based on gentle one-pointed concentration. I doubt that buddhism as a whole will ever be able to shake off this basic confusion that in my view ruins the tradition that started as a splendid system of diamond clear recognition, and keep wasting the time people put into these practices. This is madness and buddhism as a whole is definitely corrupt.

So, this is a long and winding introduction to your comment, "I know I would have benefited a lot from having these (hindu tantric Dasha Mahavidya) mantras earlier on".

Yes but hear me out... The reason why buddhism was started and grew out from hinduism is because there was a serious need for a method that would remove dualistic ignorance or selfing. The reason why gross bliss and those states of expanded awareness happen in samadhi, shamatha and jhana meditations, as they do in the vast majority of hindu methods, is because when self-based ignorance is still there in the bodymind, very charming states of bliss arise, and bliss like you know from getting high, drinking and having sex, is a trap. There is nothing wrong with sense pleasures but states of gross bliss are states of delusion made of gold! People think they practice the "dharma" but they are actually just rolling in their own shit, just like pigs do. Rusty chains, golden chains, you know.

So, the reason why I haven't given empowerments of hindu deities to my students is what I have explained above. Ignorance needs to be removed first so that you don't get trapped to self-based states in the form of gross bliss, and that is a task that takes ones time for few years at leastor more. But... if my students promise to practice both buddhist and hindu tantra, then I can consider giving shakti empowerments. But if I see anyone in Pemako sangha getting high on deities, I'll come back to haunt you even after I am dead!  

Kim, 11.10.2021

Dark Night of the Soul

 

Dark Night of the Soul

Dark nights is something we talk in our sangha a lot. Our teachers and instructors speak about this in regular basis because one of the problems out there is that people are taught practices of various types but they are not told about how rough practice can be, i.e. the dark night phenomena, and so they get into trouble, scared, overwhelmed and so on. Rough periods in practice are actually a good sign and a sign that the practice works but when people don't know this and they don't know what to do and what not to do, they usually draw mistaken conclusions. They think that there is something wrong with them, with the practice, with the teacher and so on, some even quit practicing because they get so scared.

However, the real reason for dark nights is one's own subconscious mind and the core meaning of the practice is to illuminate the subconscious. What is under the lid is being purposefully shed light on and stirred with different practices so that this material can then be used as fuel for insight/vipashyana practice.

It should be understood that actually doing this is not a fun ride but... doing this correctly leads to freedom and happiness that does not depend on circumstances. This is the only way to know ourselves as fully aware and awakened beings, as buddhas, as christs... What practitioners should learn is their limits. This is very important. They should know what they are doing and how much they can do without getting overwhelmed.

In tantra, we use guru yoga to keep things balanced as the presence of the guru brings calm and clarity, and doesn't stir things. During dark nights, we have the instruction not to practice wrathful deities because if you do, they keep stirring up the subconscious and bringing more stuff to the surface. How much one can take and use for insight practice depends on the individual. Those who are ready and understand how the practice works can take big leaps very fast. Those who aren't that ready or don't have a clear view have hard time making sense of it all and practice feels like a burden. Regardless of which type of a practitioner one is, there should be instructions how to go about it.

As a general note that I have said over and over again, there are great differences between sutris and tantric methods. It seems to be the case that those who practice sutric forms end up with problems like insomnia, psychosis, digestive and typical dark night emotions like anxiety and depression much more often than those who practice tantra. Tantric retreats also have much more natural expression in the form of chanting, singing, dancing, talking and socialising than quietive systems where you are to keep your gaze low, not talk and socialise and just do a lot of silent sitting. I think that unless one is very advanced in practice and insight, you shouldn't do quiet retreats that contain a lot of silent sitting because this is not a normal situation.

Kim, 25.5.2021

Advice to Someone with Fear and Anxiety About Energy and Kundalini

 

Advice to Someone with Fear and Anxiety About Energy and Kundalini

Kim: Hello,

I read your email, all of it. I understand your problem/s. You've gone a long way with these issues and unfortunately you haven't met anyone before who could help you out with your problems. I am looking at your past and present experiences as a whole, and even if to you it might look like an endless mess that you cannot get out of or make sense, it is actually not that complex or difficult.

What you need is 1) a clear view of the path and its experiences, incl. energetics and 2) practices that help you to remove and pacify your fears, anxieties and whatever mental-emotional issues are there. You do not have psychotic features so all this is actually easy to manage, if you have the right tools and view. I've had similar issues myself back in the day and have students who have had similar things as you, so nothing what you have experienced is unique to your case. Perhaps you can feel some relief knowing this.

*

-You are over-concerned about sensations. If and when there is nothing wrong with you medically, it means that 1. it's all energetic and 2. you are just anxious and paranoid about it. It is common to different types of subtle sensations. None of what you describe is uncommon. They are not dangerous or weird in themselves. They are just sensations and energetic events. It is only when you don't know this simple fact is because you get anxious and scared about them. The only thing to pay attention to is the fear and anxiety, which are a form of self. Your problem is your "you" that gets scared and anxious. With this point we enter the world of buddhist meditation. I don't know if you practiced buddhism before but my impression is that you didn't, and that's part of the problem because you don't have clear view of these things. -We have three types of bodies: 1. physical, 2. energetic/mind and 3. awareness/buddhanature. Main part of your problem is that you are disconnected from your awareness/buddhanature and this makes you get extra-lost in that prana/energy/fear/anxiety stuff. So you should establish clear awareness in your being. This is actually very easy to do by tantric means. Read this and do the practice described in it: https://www.pemakobuddhism.com/111

The practice uses guru mantras that are explained. In tantra we turn to gurus who are fully enlightened masters for help. All we need to do is to be sincere in our request to receive their help that come in the form of blessings. This is guru yoga and it is the heart and soul of all tantric methods. You will notice that when you chant the mantra, your mind becomes clear and fearless, while you feel a warm soothing and pleasant energy fill you up. Don't worry, none of this is strange or scary. You can trust it, relax and just enjoy the ride. Try. You are also welcome to join any of the guided sessions lead by our acharya's or retreats taught by myself: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pemakobuddhism/events

These will solve your problems for good. You will see the positive benefit from your first session. Then you just keep taking the medicine. If you need advice, I'm here. * You either didn't listen or understand what I wrote to you before, so please go back and read my previous messages. When I say that it is safe, I mean it. When I say that energetic experiences are normal and that you do not need to be alarmed of them, I mean it.

You do not need to take a "leap of faith into the unknown" or anything like that but if you keep following the habits of fear and anxiety like before, it will take unnecessarily long time to sort this out. So!

Take it easy. Relax. When I give this simple instruction to relax, it means that you really need to relax. Relax your body, take a few deep breaths and let your breathing become relaxed. Your mind will calm down also. Within this relaxation you say a prayer request in your own words and invite Guru Rinpoche to you, or you can use his mantra to invite him over to you. Either way, he comes to you in person. A fully enlightened master actually comes to you in nonphysical form. There is no greater healer than that so please take advantage of that to your own great benefit! Little by little you learn to know him and trust him. Everytime you feel his presence, you can ask yourself whether it feels safe or not. He will give you great help to pacify your mind and its many fears and anxieties. This helps you to grow up spiritually.

How to Help Children with Panic Attacks and Scary Situations

 

How to Help Children with

Panic Attacks and Scary Situations

OK, gotcha. This is nothing unusual, though I'm sure it is troubling and concerning to see it in a young boy. You should surround him with guru's blessings, and/or the blessings of the refuge jewels. Ask blessings from GR and YT to him, also mother should ask. And you chant on his behalf. He is a small child and cannot chant in the way an adult can, so you two chant for him. As you chant guru mantras, NGR or NYT or both at the same time, imagine that the blessings surround and engulf him. This can also be done by combing, where you chant and with your hands put the charge into his body and aura. Having guru's presence in his bodymind, he will be able to relax and let go for a moment but it might only last for a short time. Then you do it again, and again, whenever necessary.

You should also play mantra music at your house or where the boy lives. Dosn't matter which mantras, whether Deva Premal or artists like that, Hare Krishna, hindu deities (there are relly good musical recordings of those) or buddhist mantras. The idea is to fill the atmosphere with pure energy and blessings.

You should also bless his food by asking guru's blessing and/or chanting few mantras for his food.

Fill him and his life with pure and safe energy. You simply pray for him and wish him good. That will check all the boxes and you will see a change in him. The important thing is to keep doing it. He will also learn many things from this as he sees and feels the effects of these practices. Maybe he starts chanting himself.

You can and should tell him about gurus who he can always invite to him to feel safe and comfortable. Children in general are very open and pure so they can actually see GR or YT coming to them. He will see and feel the light radiating from the guru so he will feel good about it in an instant.

You can also explain him about basic emotions of fear, panic, anger etc. in a manner that a child can understand it so that he can use the knowledge when he experiences it. Teach him how to see these scary experiences and visions in a down-to-earth manner. Tell him that he need not be afraid and that many people experience same things. It is important for him not to feel abnormal about strange experiences.

Finally, it is as important for you two adults to understand that these things happen and they are not uncommon. Children, like many adults, see these things. It will be easier for you to approach this situation and the child when you establish guru's presence in yourself, when you discuss these things with him. In other words, when you don't know what to do or are lost, call the guru to yourself, everytime, over and over again.

You'll be alright and can grow together three of you. It'll be alright :)

 

Kim, 28.3.2021

Fear, Mortality and Coronavirus

Fear, Mortality and Coronavirus

I don’t think I have that many friends who don’t do somekind of spiritual practice but I would like to post this short instruction to be shared by my friends as an attempt to help anyone who might found her- or himself overwhelmed by strong emotions due to fear of illness and death caused by coronavirus. Please share this on your wall.

I am a teacher of buddhist meditation. Some might think that ”buddhism” is something religious but I personally view buddhism as a practical philisophy that through different kinds of exercises can help us with our existential and emotional issues. You can think yourself, use your own reason and try the exercises I am about to suggest to you.

So. Coronavirus triggers fear and anxiety in the minds and hearts of many. We can feel this anxious energy that fills the air, even if we are not in the immediate presence of other people. It is kind of natural to be afraid in this life threatening situation. It is kind of natural for us to react to this impending danger by becoming fearful. However, we do not necessarily need to be bound by fear.

It is a simple fact of life that what is born will also die. There is not a single lifeform on Earth that is born and keeps on living. All kinds of beings are born, live for some time and then pass away. This includes everyone, you and I included. This simple fact is something that people forget, even though it is inevitable. Think about it.

Our Western culture does not discuss death openly so when something unexpected happens in life, like we get into some accident or get badly ill, we get very scared because we have forgotten our mortality and are therefore in shock. Then in shock, not understanding the situation, we are gripped by the fear of death or illness and we try to grab onto something that could keep us safe. This is what hoarding is, a primitive subconscious reaction to try get to a safe place. Sure we need food and toilet paper but if you think it through nothing in life can make us perfectly safe.

We can have relative safety through family, friends, insurance and wealth but if you think it through when the moment of death dawns or we get a fatal illness these things are unable to quarantee our safety. This is common logic.

Buddhist meditation teaches you to know yourself. Knowing oneself means becoming aware of what goes on in our mind. Instead of becoming gripped by fear and anxiety, we can learn to notice how the emotion of fear arises, comes into being. We can be aware of it rather than dictated by it. This becoming aware of emotions makes us become free from their negative power. This changes the way how we react and experience things. Learning this is more precious than gold because it helps us to find our true fearless and non-anxious being that cannot be pushed by emotions and reactions. We all have that fearless, peaceful and grounded potential, it just needs to be recognised.

Through this simple exercise we can find safety that does not depend on external factors or other people.

If we contemplate our mortality and become aware of our arising emotions, we will not try to find safety and happiness from things that can’t provide it. This doesn’t mean we need to get rid of any of these things. Actually to have a loving family, trustworthy friends and money is a great blessing. It’s just that through basic life contemplation our way of being and our way of seeing things changes.

Even in difficult circumstances we can remain calm, clear minded and sincerely joyful. Even at the moment of death we can smile and enjoy, and not be scared. Many people are terrified by death because they have not prepared and acquired understanding. This is merely a matter of knowing who we are and what is going on in our mind.

There are many forms and traditions of buddhism, meditation, mindfulness and meditative yoga out there. Please help yourself and seek instructions and guidance from proficient teachers and organisations.

The point is not to join a religion or a group. The point is to acquire first hand knowledge of ourselves. The point is to make sense of life, to reduce and eradicate unstudied confusions, fears and psychological contraction in our minds.

Thank you for reading and sharing this message. Let’s put an end to the pandemic of fear.

Kim Katami

Pemako Buddhist teacher,

www.pemakobuddhism.com

What Is Depression And How To Heal It?

What Is Depression And

How To Heal It?

By Kim Katami

Open Heart, www.en.openheart.fi

This short article views depression and ways of healing it from yogic or meditational, as well as existential perspective.

What Is Depression?

Depression, like all other forms of mental illness, is a vicious impediment and many in the modern societies suffer from it. Western psychology and modern medicine offers aids in the healing of it as do various methods of yogic meditation.

Depression is a state of mind that causes partial or complete paralysis of one's mental and emotional functions. Severe depression makes one unable to exercise one's own will power. In cases of lesser depression, one is still capable of momentary exercise of will which makes the healing of the illness quicker.

To someone depressed, distraction due to great volume of thoughts or out of proportion emotions are not a problem. In fact, a depressed person has few thoughts and emotions. Depressed person is not restless.

According to yogic psychology, depression is caused by something called substrate consciousness or simply, subconscious mind. Typical for this aspect of the human mind is emotional flatness and dullness from lesser to greater degree. Normal functions of thinking, feeling, enthusiasm and happiness are clouded by grey veils of the subconscious mind. These mind-fogs put the concerned person into a state of paralysis and meaninglessness.

The psychological anatomy of man can be categorized in the following way(*):

1. Subject-self. Me, I.

2. Object-selves. Thoughts and emotions.

3. Substrate consciousness. The basis of all phenomena.

4. Awareness. Buddha-nature.

(*) from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice

Before discussing ways of healing depression, I'd like to consider the cause of depression from the existential perspective.

Why Am I Here? Life Without Deeper Meaning

Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and author, from Advice for People With Depression,

”People who don't have enough order in their life tend to get overwhelmed. If someone comes to see me and says they're depressed, I always ask them a standard set of questions. Do you have a job? If you don't have a job you are really in trouble in our society. First of all, your biological rhythms tend to go off the rail because there is no reason to go to bed at any particular time and there is no reason to get up... They also don't have a purpose. People aren't good without a purpose... We absolutely understand the circuitry that underlies positive emotion, we know how it works. Almost all the positive emotions that any of you are likely to experience in your life will not be a consequence of attaining things. It will be a consequence to see that things are working, as you proceed towards a goal you value. That's completely different and you need to know this because people are often stunned... So if you don't have a job, you don't have structure. That's not good, plus you tend not to have a point, so you are overwhelmed by chaotic lack of structure and you don't have any positive emotion... Sometimes you see people who are depressed who have no job, no friends, no intimate relationships, they have an additional health problem and they have an alcohol-drug problem. My experience has been that if you have three of those problems, it's almost impossible to help you. You're so deeply mired in chaos that you can't get out... One of the things I tell people who are depressed is to get a job. You need a job, find some friends, get out in the dating circuit, see if you can establish an intimate relationship. Put together some foundational pillars that your life rests on. That's the practical thing to do.”

Dr. Peterson also mentions the helpfulness of anti-depressants for those severely depressed.

What I would like to add to this rather typical, and I am sure often helpful set of practical advice, is to consider whether the depressed person is miserable due to existential reasons.

Personally, I suffered from depression for many years in my youth. It wasn't diagnosed, and therefore not correctly understood by people around me, which is why I often got the same advice as Dr. Peterson offers above: just get a job, get friends, just do this, just do that and if you can't do that, start taking drugs and then do it. By this statement I do not mean to misinterpret Dr. Peterson who I greatly admire. I am simply formulating the way depression is typically viewed.

Problem with this advice is this.

What if the person in question finds no value in getting up in the morning to get to a meaningless job? What if she or he finds no value in pursuing the common options of education, career or intimate relationships, that others do? What if these things mean nothing to her? What if her problem is more foundational than that?

Having been a professional meditation teacher for over 10 years, I have met hundreds of people who, like me, suffered of depression, had no meaning in life and were existentially lost. If this is the cause of depression, then the only way to become healed of it, is to recognise oneself not as the human storyline with its successes and failures, but as boundless freedom, devoid of the sense of me-ness. It is deeply unfulfilling and unsatisfactory to only know oneself as an entity tied into one's physical body and whatever culture and people we are surrounded with. This existential crisis cannot be fixed with common worldly solutions, for the only way to solve it is to go beyond time, place and the personal storyline, and access the ground of being that is nameless, ageless, timeless and groundless, ever fresh, brimming with liveliness and common to all living beings. Different main streams or vehicles (skt. yana) of buddhism look at this task from their own perspectives but common to all of them is to offer ways to quench this fundamental existential hunger. This is what dharma is for, to give experiential answers to existential questions.

How To Heal Depression?

Substrate consciousness, that part of the human psychology that causes depression, is not at all foreign to yogis, professionals and masters of meditation. It has been discussed by adepts and practitioners for many hundreds of years and therefore yogic traditions have ways of dealing with it, in other words, they have ways of dealing with the part of mind that causes depression.

Here, I would like to present one and very effective way for healing depression by recognition of the natural state, one's natural innate stress-free condition. It is called Dynamic Concentration, which is an uncommon form of concentration practice.

Concentration practices are commonly taught with low intensity. For example, when mindfulness of the movement of the breath (p. anapanasati, skt. prana apana smriti) is taught, the student is instructed to keep his attention gently on the breath and return the attention back to the object when distracted. In a similar way, when mantras are recited, they are always recited with gentle concentration, never with high intensity, with stronger or even explosive focus.

This light or gentle focus can be compared to a volume knob of a stereo system. In this example light focus is analoguous to low level which produces low but still audible volume of music. This would equal perhaps 5-10% of the total volume output. However, the volume knob can be turned higher. It goes up to 30%, 60%, 90% and with each level we hear a corresponding change in the volume. Turning the volume high has an immediate effect. In this analogy, zero would equal not having concentration at all, yet not being distracted either, i.e. the natural state. 90% would already be very loud and not very enjoyable for an extended period of time. However we all have times in our lives when for a moment we want to turn up the music. And how wonderful it is! The neighbours maybe don't like it but it is fun nevertheless.

Regardless whether we follow the breath or chant mantras, the same can be done in yogic practice. Dynamic focus greatly changes the effect of the concentration practice. With light focus, as in commonly known shamatha, with constant distractions it takes time to calm the monkey mind. Whether an exercise of light focus ever cuts through the layers of the subconscious and substrate minds is rightly questionable. It takes years of long hours of daily training to build the muscle of concentration to get the benefits of shamatha meditation (tib. shine). This approach is followed by a large number of Buddhist methods. I think that there are better and more effective ways of doing the training, especially for householders whose daily time for practice is limited.

Concentration can be momentarily heigthened, like turning the volume knob high suddenly to create a short (0.3-2 seconds) explosion-like, momentary peak. This creates a quick punch of sorts, like an explosion that can be controlled. This punch hits through all of samsaric mind and reveals the natural state in a very short period of time. We are discussing an exercise that indirectly has been used in Buddhism and many other yoga and dharma teachings for centuries through meditation, recitation, religious art and yogic exercise and yet very few schools have realised the immense value of dynamic concentration to give it a central place in their teachings...

Dynamic concentration can be adapted to fit the view and practices of any yogic approach... It is very easy for anyone to test whether dynamic concentration really works. All you need is a few minutes of time and a comfortable place to try it(*).

(*) from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice

The Effect of Dynamic Concentration In Pictures

From these pictures you can observe what Dynamic Concentration, sharp use of focus, actually does in one's mind and how the explosive power disperses the greyness and foggyness of mind that the substrate produces, to reveal the natural clarity of the normal state.

Bird seen naturally, without depression or other forms of distraction.

From left to right: 1. Bird seen naturally. 2. Bird seen during mild depression. 3. Bird seen during strong depression. 4. Bird seen during very strong depression.

From left to right: 1. Bird seen partially naturally after some Dynamic Concentration practice. 2. Bird seen even more naturally after more Dynamic Concentration practice. 3. Bird seen almost completely naturally, without the grey layers of substrate mind, after a proper and decisive use of Dynamic Concentration.

Conclusion

I guess all humans question their existence at some degree in some stage of their lives. For some, it passes quickly and doesn't grow to become a great issue or even the most important issue in one's whole life, while it does for some. Whether one considers her- or himself to be on the spiritual path or not, one can have illnesses and ailments, both physical and psychological, according to one's karma and genetics. 

In this short article I have tried to convey the basic understanding of depression and the structure of the human mind, and described a simple exercise how depression or many other types of mental obscurations can be dealt with.

Thank you for reading,

-Kim Katami, 27.6.2019

Open Heart Sangha,

www.en.openheart.fi

Read more about Dynamic Concentration from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice and watch video examples of this exercise on this playlist at YouTube.