If you have ever watched a loved one go right off the deep end, you will understand the desperate need to find solutions to the enigma of a chronic and prolonged mental illness. When a close relative cycles around again and again through the pains and confusion of manic depression, it can cause you to question the very foundations of your belief system.
In 2005, I attended the Mind and Life Conference in Washington, D.C., to gather information for the Wood River Valley chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I was curious about the relationship between mental health, spirituality and cutting-edge brain science.
"Investigating the Mind: The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation" was organized by a team of neuroscientists, spiritual leaders and "contemplatives," including the Dalai Lama, Father Thomas Keating, Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zin. Over the course of a few days, many interesting people shared notes in the hope of finding treatments for modern maladies, including mental illness, within age-old spiritual practices like meditation and prayer.
One of my goals in attending the conference was to interview Tendzin Choegyal, the Dalai Lama's youngest brother. A few months before the conference, he had told a group of Sun Valley Wellness Festival attendees that he suffered from bipolar disorder, or manic depression.
After reading Alan Watts' "Psychotherapy East and West," I came to believe that spiritual beliefs and practices could return us to sanity by helping us come to terms with what it means to be human. My own personal beliefs ranged all over the map and seemed to change with the wind. But I expected Buddhists, with their deep understanding of the mind, to shed some light on what it takes to keep a lid on things from day to day.
Tendzin Cheogyal, or T.C. as he is affectionately known, traveled with the entourage of the God King of Tibet. His friends included some of the most renowned meditation practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism. Was bipolar disorder more than even he could handle? Did Tendzin rely on medication instead of meditation to control his mind? My questions for the panel of scientists and monks at the Mind and Life Conference were: "Is it true that people are taking medications for spiritual problems? And if so, could we not find spiritual cures for some medical problems, especially mental-health problems?"
I learned that brain-mapping scientists had found a correlation between severe depression and the looping of electrical and chemical patterns within specific areas of the brain. Dr. Richard Davidson described depression as a "style of thinking," and contrasted it to other styles, like those of monks in deep meditation. Davidson also said patients with particular psychoses do not respond well to meditation, that it could even make things worse.
There was much talk about the "primate brain" of humans—how we tend to hold grudges, seek vengeance and lash out at others when we are in pain. The Dalai Lama, who listened intently all the while, suggested that mood disorders, like personalities, were largely a matter of "temperament." He advised drinking more water to keep the mind healthy.
Outside, a group of Chinese scientists picketed the conference, saying it represented a dangerous mingling of religion and science.
The next day I met Tendzin Choegyal at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. T.C. was far more secular than his older brother. He wore a suit rather than robes and owned a hotel in Dharamsala, India. He had served in the Indian Army as a paratrooper. Although he is considered by his countrymen to be an incarnation of a high lama who lived long ago, T.C. said he had doubts about the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation and transmigration of souls.
T.C. said he took two medications to help control the symptoms of his bipolar disorder. I gathered from talking with him that his behavior in the past had caused embarrassment.
"I won't stop taking the medications again because I won't risk having another episode," he said, using modern clinical language, the kind used by doctors who consider mental illnesses to be "brain disorders" more or less treatable with chemical medications.
As T.C. reached to pick up the tab, he quoted the last words spoken by the Buddha: "Be a lamp of understanding to your self."
I wandered out into the city, to the Lincoln Memorial, and stood under the timeless sculpture of Abe Lincoln who sits brooding on history. A shaky truce has always existed between political leaders and spiritual leaders because they need one another, just as the two hemispheres of our brains need one another to make sense of the world.
Maybe mental health and mental illness exist in a similar balance as we move along the continuum of history. As individuals and as a nation, we are called again and again to weigh our spiritual ideals against the hard facts of life.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
