During the Buddha’s time, there must have been monastics who had depression and anxiety disorders. How do you think they solved them?
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Having known that sights are impermanent, changing, fading, and ceasing, when one accurately sees with right wisdom that ‘All prior sights as well as all present sights are impermanent, unsatisfying, and of the nature to change,’ elation arises. This kind of elation is called ‘renunciate elation.’
[…]
monks, depending and relying on the six kinds of renunciate elation, abandon the six kinds of renunciate depression. In this way there is the abandoning of them, the transcendence of them.
- MN 137
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Its almost certain depression and anxiety have always been endemic in India. Certain bhikkuu/ni would have predictably carried genetic and childhood trauma loadings.
The intense dukkha of depression would likely have driven many out of their worldly roles into ordination out of share desperation. So its even more likely a significant minority of monastics would have had depression and anxiety backgrounds.
Monastics did have many dhamma resources to mitigate against depression and anxiety. The teaching of dukkha as a Noble Truth prevents avoidance and invites exploration and the end of dukkha. Then theres mindfulness to see exactly what was arising, with dhamma teaching eg hindrances to understand specific issues and then apply the specific dhamma cures.
Its nice to think monastics of old " solved" these issues. However some monastics took their own lives. We don’t know why some monastics suicided, but wanting to die continues to be a core feature of serious depression.
Its important modern monastics dont ignore anxiety and depression. If a monastic had chest pain most would go to doctor for effective diagnosis and possible life saving treatment. If a monastic has a neuronal illness with features of anxiety and depression, its important they see a doctor for effective diagnosis and possible brain saving treatment eg thyroid hormones, B12 or BDNF modifying agents.
Beliefs like “its just dukkha” “Dhamma will cure it” “Im a monastic, I should be able to solve this myself” are all unskillful and at worst deadly.
May all being be well.
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Please use discretion in discussing or speculating on mental health issues as this forum is not dedicated to that purpose.
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A few years ago there was a Lion’s Roar essay by a lay woman who was a long term meditator and who contracted severe depression. Going to retreats, taking the standard advice, and trying to meditate through it only made it worse. She left Buddhism and meditation for a while. She went through a bit of journey. I remember at the end of her essay she wondered if people like her were just ( or mostly ) left out of the writings. If they just disrobed and moved on.
I had a lot of resistance to taking medication. I thought my unhappiness had two parts: negative circumstances in the outside world, which Zoloft obviously couldn’t fix, and negative attitudes inside my head, which I thought my Buddhist practice should take care of. Besides, an orthodox Zen voice whispered in my mind that the monks of old got along without Zoloft. But some of those monks probably obsessed their lives away in misery; others may have left the monastery because they couldn’t concentrate. Buddhist history doesn’t tell us about the ones who tried and failed, the ones with attention deficit disorder or clinical depression.
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Trying to keep my personal views brief on that, I think anyone interested in mental issues in a monastic setting should read the rather frank letters of Ñānavīra Thera.
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There is excellent research on adverse effects of meditation and the intersection of mental illness and meditation practices being conducted by academics and clinicians associated with Cheetah House (https://www.cheetahhouse.org/). They also provide some support services.
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If depression and anxiety is respectively the chronic activation of the freeze and fight/flight response, I would guess that a major component would be changing the activation patterns of the nervous system.
A lot of emotional regulation happens in our relationships to other people. So having safe relationships with other monastics would probably go a long way.
Another thing would be spending lots of time in nature.
Basically, hanging out in nature with awakened colleagues would probably do a lot to convince someone’s nervous system that they are safe.
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Well, major depressive disorder is more than a freezing behavior and anxiety is much more than, but may involve, fight-or-flight behaviors. Being around supportive people and spending time in nature may of course be supportive for everyone, but more severe mental illness states require clinical assessment and intervention. Prioritizing safety is very important, but plenty of anxious and depressed people need help beyond ensuring safety.
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Hi bgp 
I think to try to answer the OPs question one has to make some sort of hypothesis about what depression and anxiety is, or what they are caused by, in order to speculate how the conditions at the time of the Buddha would affect them.
If you read psychological literature that focuses on trauma, attachment styles (of children), or adverse childhood events, you will find explanations of depression and anxiety that center the nervous system and emotional regulation.
I think you think I am maybe trivialising depression and anxiety, saying something like depressed people just need to walk in nature. But that’s not what I mean.
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Ah, okay. Thank you for the clarification! .
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Bu Pj 1
At one time, Sāriputta, the Buddha Vessabhū, the Perfected and the fully Awakened One, was staying in a certain frightening forest grove. He instructed a sangha of a thousand monks by reading their minds, saying,
‘Think like this, not like that; pay attention like this, not like that; abandon this and attain that.’
When they had been instructed by Buddha Vessabhū, their minds were freed from the corruptions through letting go.
or
DN 11
And what is the demonstration of instruction?
It’s when a mendicant instructs others like this:
‘Think like this, not like that. Focus your mind like this, not like that. Give up this, and live having achieved that.’
This is called the demonstration of instruction.
Problem is one needs someone who has mastered the path and know the fruit/result from the instruction. Probably very rare nowadays to find one.
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Sometimes valuable lessons get taught when things go wrong. Sometimes tragically. Regrettably what can be illustrated is that the Buddhas teaching are profound and not following them carefully is hazardous.
Buddha taught so many skillful means, that happen to also prevent mental illness like:
- Seeking out a trustworthy teacher and listening to them
- Spiritual friends
- Social support by being embedded in a community with clear social roles
- Not going off into isolation until very advanced and with the guidance of ones teacher
- Sila that builds positive self-esteem
- Samma-sati
- Samma-samadhi
- Metta and karuna
So monastics in the Buddhas days had many valuable supports.
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I don’t think a person having such disorders can do that.
Clearly, she didn’t get the kind of meditation instruction that suited her condition.
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So true. What meditation would have helped Susan? Susan Moon in her courageous Tricycle article shared:
I had then been a Zen Buddhist practitioner for more than twenty years. …But it didn’t help. This is something I want to say: at times it made things worse. . ..
My Buddhist teachers urged me to keep on sitting zazen . “Don’t turn away from your suffering,” they said. “Just watch the painful thoughts arise and watch them pass away again.”… “Bring your attention back to your breathing,” my teachers had advised me.
The Zen meditation instructions sound just like mindfulness of breathing, citta and dhamma, emphasizing the First Noble Truth. Its exactly the kind of instruction familiar to students of Vipassana/Theravada/Insight retreats.
What kind of meditation instructions would you give in this sort of struggle?
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There’s a reason there’s 6 other factors on the path before there’s sammasati - and with the meditation fad, that often gets overlooked. All too often, sometimes people just need wholesome engagements to feel good about themselves, before being comfortable sitting in any sort of meditation.
I’m also uncomfortable with the (all the common) “Stay with the pain / discomfort / don’t turn away from suffering” kind of teachings. As far as I know, Buddha never advises people to stay with the suffering or watch your painful thoughts arise and pass away. The only thing that gets close to that is asubha practice, and it has a specific purpose - not to create discomfort, but to achieve equanimity towards sensual desires.
To me, it kind of feels like Body Yoga practices bleeding into mindfulness - in Yoga, you absolutely sit with gentle discomfort until your body slowly opens up. That’s a different (physical) practice, and sati is a different practice.
There’s a reason almost all meditation guidelines in the suttas open up with the comfort, well being of the practitioner, focusing on wholesome states of mind, first jhana’s key factors being joy and ease. Unfortunately, struggling people make recurring customers.
Investigating the first noble truth need not be an uncomfortable experience at all. In fact, it should be the opposite - something done in delight, something that results in delight. According to commentarial tradition, it’s actually done only after samadhi anyway - turning the mind towards investigation when it’s most stable, comfortable and pliable. For example:
AN 9.36:
Take a mendicant who, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption. 2.4They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self.
It’s clear here that, samadhi is a prerequisite for investigating dukkha. The only ambiguity here, is if it’s during samadhi, or shortly thereafter (I think the sutta is clear that this is done during but certain people object to that). But for our discussion’s sake, that’s a difference without distinction - one needs a joyful mind at ease to investigate dukkha properly.
In short, I don’t think there’s any scriptural basis for meditation teachers pushing towards sit with the painful feeling at all. In fact, being unable to generate ease and joy in meditation should be seen as a symptom of previous factors of the path not being properly established. Such a person would be better off doing the dishes, helping local people and animals, doing charitable deeds, rather than forcing themselves to sit on a couch, in my opinion.
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Well said. I fully agree that sometimes formal sitting meditation is not suitable.
Im still curious what Venerable @Kumara would suggest, as there was the suggestion a different kind of meditation might have been beneficial … 
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Short meditations, 10-20 minutes, grounded in the body.
But remember, there is a whole 8-fold path. Practice isn’t just meditation.
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I don’t think that would give a person in those circumstances much to do, at least not much that would help her.
- Right View cold help a little.
- Right Intent - she probably already has it being a long term devotee
- Right Speech - might help a tiny bit, but will not get rid of severe depression, anxiety, and pain
- Right Action - she is probably already keeping the right precepts
- Right Livliehood - she is probably already avoiding the 5 wrong livliehoods ( weapons, poisons, trading in meat, slavery, prostitution, etc )
- Right Effort - per the article she was trying
- Right Mindfulness - maybe dry insight, noticing impermanence and disatisfactorieness while off the cushion could have helped her anxiety and depression.
- Right Concentration - she already can’t do that.
So, the other 7 factors are things the author probably was already doing and/or would only help a person with extreme depression and anxiety only a little bit.
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