I heard that in Tibetan medicine, ADHD is described as having a mind that is too powerful for the brain to keep up with. This is why stimulants help; they help speed up the brain so it can better keep pace with the mind.
It was also universally accepted that there are no guarantees and your practice in this life will much more likely provide benefits for the next ones. There are lots of individual examples in the texts, but no stories of everyone in a nation becoming "healed" somehow
However, in modern societies people want this particular life not to suck, and for some reason expect Buddhism to somehow work much better now than it did back then, with 100% effectiveness at making them enlightened. Like, literally reading translations of Buddha now is somehow supposed to work incomparably better than living when the Buddha was still alive
If a person expects those guarantees, they should search for additional ways
From a Buddhist point of view the idea that there's a baseline neuro-thing shared by most people that can be diverged from is suspect in the first place. This often leads to mostly "normal" people using whatever diagnosis they have as a shield and an excuse, especially today, when even the idea of reducing conditions that objectively make life more difficult and reduce its quality is sometimes attacked.
As usual Buddhism has a better approach (surprise, since it comes from people who actually understand the mind) which is that there's no baseline "normal" as opposed to divergent, and instead everyone has their own conditions, physical, karmic and otherwise, that need to be worked with skilfully. This is what makes teachers and community important. This working with conditions also implies taking care of health based on proper advice from doctors.
There's the story of Culapanthaka, who seems like he might be classified as "neurodivergent" today. Maybe even worse, he was extremely "dull" to the point of being incapable even of memorizing a small piece of any teaching. But the Buddha gave him a practice method and accompanying teachings that would work for him, and they did, making him an arhat.
Modern psychology also views the brain as just another organ to be treated with drugs. I remember a psychology professor telling me in college: "why meditate when you can medicate". Pretty terrible advice, and it's no wonder that today in the US almost everyone seems to be taking psychiatric meds.
Are you indicating that psychiatric medications are a negative phenomenon? All the Lamas I've met have been encouraging of people with mental health disorders to take medication when it's needed.
No, I addressed this above actually. However, useless medication and over medication are real dangers too. There are many conditions that can be cured with a limited period of medication, there are many that don't actually need medication at all, and there are many that do require long term medication. One should strive and hope to get good advice in these matters.
There are many assumptions that aren't contrasted. There's advancement in comparison with 60 years before but we should not simply accept all the concepts and tendencies in modern sciences. Instead develop good critical argumentations
If feeling a teaching is difficult remember there are 84000doors and even great masters have struggled until getting the correct door for they
My own teachers have always spoken to working with one's circumstances. We adjust our practice according to what is going on in our lives. If we are sick, caring for others, working alot, in retreat, whatever. We adjust the practice.
The same applies to working with our natures. We are all embodied differently. So we work with the capacity of that embodiment. It may be that seated meditation is not the place to start for you. You may be able to build up attention and mindfulness with more "doing" practices. Prostrations. Making offerings. Chanting. Recitation.
Can I reverse this?
Don’t think of neurodivergence as an impediment to some goal of attention or mindfulness but rather mindfulness as an accepting and helping with such things. For me mindfulness and meditation has helped just as much as medication for focus and clarity of mind.
It isn’t a race to any goal. Just accept what you are experiencing and note it. There is a great little paragraph in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind about “mind weeds” the sort of common problems and mental traps in our meditation practice we fall into. We start out trying to eliminate them but as time goes on we come to accept and appreciate them.
I am neurodivergent and have difficulty with sitting/breathing meditation. I used to despair that I would never get anywhere with Buddhist practice until I found the Pure Land path which involves the simple but effective practice of nianfo (Amitabha recitation). I like to think that Amitabha Buddha took neurodivergent folk into consideration when he made his vows, because he knew how difficult cultivation would be using other advanced methods :-)
Personally as an AuDHD (meaning I have both autism and ADHD), I need both meditation AND medication in order to function!
One thing that helps me with meditation (besides Vyvanse) is counting my breaths. Because if I just repeat “I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out,” I tend to lose track. But if I count them, it helps me focus more.
My take is, building muscle is easier for some people than others. Training attention is easier for some people than others. The practice, for both ends, is still the same.
It helped me a lot when I began meditating to hear, over and over and over: Meditation isn't about not thinking - it's not about doing or not doing anything. It's just about staying present with what's happening, and in the moments of realizing the attention has drifted, being grateful for the capacity to notice that, and resuming practice.
I believe you are correct in thinking that you are being triggered from problems you had. I'm sorry you had a negative experience, but "neurodivergence" is a helpful and inclusive term for anyone who has any kind of mental disorder or condition that a neurotypical person does not have. I agree that there are some cases where people place too much value in labels, but in a lot of cases these labels just make it easier for doctor and patient to discuss otherwise complicated psychological experiences. In a lot of cases, people who suspect that they are neurodivergent or have some sort of mental disorder have to fight quite a bit to get any kind of diagnosis from a doctor because doctors are hesitant to diagnose adults since symptoms are so much harder to observe in adults than in children. So a lot of people feel really relieved and lucky to finally get a diagnosis because it helps them understand and treat their disorder. Although it can sometimes be frustrating if the doctor gives the wrong diagnosis.
If you are unwell, seek aid & medication. But if you mean can you still become a monk. Well, that depends on your treatment, no? But it is doable.
But ultimately, to be a Buddhist is to let go of worldly matters, labels are also 1 such thing. The question now, do you have it in you to do that?
I can understand you need to use the word to describe your situation. I merely want you to understand that if you truly wants to be a monk & attain nibbana, you can't constantly tell yourself "I can't, I'm a neurodivergent person." & self sabotage yourself that way. But rather, find ways to practice while working with your neurodivergent state of mind.
It won't be easy, but it is doable. Easier said than done, yes.
I never said "I can't" or anything else about my ability to practice, and I'm not worried about becoming a monk. Monkhood will come when it's meant to come. I think I'll focus on just practicing Buddhism for now.
You will be recommended to do more rituals for releasing karmic debtors to cure it. Buddha's direct commentary tends to be on how this sutra will increase wisdom etc.
While they can be strategically coped with, most of the disorders I'm thinking of can not be cured. Maybe this is what was meant by what you're referencing but any talk of "curing it" is nonsense.
Not sure which ones you’re referring to, but I’ve completely cured severe, lifelong ocd with a combo of therapy and Buddhism.
It was driven by repressed trauma, and I had pretty severe symptoms of ADHD as well. Not an easy journey though
That is not a simple answer but I was lucky that my (qualified) psychologist is also a Buddhist monk, so he helped weave them together.
Basically it came down to an understanding that repression creates karma, which was my life and health kept getting worse. Through a combination of therapy, meditation techniques (particularly zen style sitting) and an understanding of the mind Buddhist style, the repressed memories and emotions have been remembered and processed.
Body work was also extremely helpful, I used a system called feldenkrais but I believe there’s others.
Is coping well a cure? All symptoms never arise?
Brain imaging studies have shown that people with OCD often have differences in the frontal cortex and subcortical structures of the brain, areas of the brain that impact the ability to control behavior and emotional responses.
Doctors agree? Depends on the trauma I suppose. What if it’s really bad trauma that haunts your life and the whole family is affected for years. Nice to get that way my congratulations,quite rare
Yes it’s pretty obvious I’m very different from while I was afflicted.
I got sexually assaulted and beaten every night by a family member for nearly a decade, my whole family conspired for decades to make sure I repressed it, so yes extremely severe trauma. The same person then murdered my dog as an adult, which started me down the healing process. If haunted every moment, awake or asleep and destroyed my physical health too.
Thank you, it’s been an all consuming and painful process, it’s nice to finally see some healing
There are disorders that are both nervous system involved plus stable across the lifespan. The one that I have living caregiver experience with is FASD. No cure but as a developmental disorder, diagnosis can lead to many benefits and reduced symptoms, trauma, etc. The saying that if you have met one person with FASD you have met one person applies really strongly. One researcher in the field gave a presentation on accommodations and neurology for FASD. Her analogy was that you absolutely can (in Buddhist terms with skillful means) smooth the gravel road but it will always be a gravel road.
There is quiet pushback for including FASD that I have seen written about in one paper where the neurodivergent concept was examined. It does get excluded on a natural vs some agent causing analysis and spaces have subtle gatekeeping, eg rare inclusion in hashtags lists. That is why it may not come to mind but prevalence is studied (1 in 4 in North America, estimated ), assumed to be increasing.
The pre-natal exposure to teratogens can cause this lifelong condition and there is no known safe amount, timeing for pre-natal exposure to alcohol. The skillful means include as my teacher taught me a practice of observation. Symptoms change even within a day, seasonally and the goal is for interdependence not any cure. There can often be other diagnoses that go with a FASD, and the FASD leads in terms of approach.
it's not nonsense. it's ignorance on a topic that's just more recently become more known about. neurodivergence was not as it is today as it was thought of long ago. back when the first buddah achieved enlightenment, modern medicines and "coping mechanisms" hadn't been invented yet, let alone the thought of anything of the like. so when they say cure it you and me know today that that is infact a nonsensical thing to say, that it's not something like a physical ailment that can just be cured, however back then it would have been considered like a physical ailment and so if it was talked about at all it would have been viewed and talked about as something to be cured of as unfortunate as that may be to hear.
ignorance maybe wasn't the best word for it, me bad at word and no word well, so sorry lol but you said you get what I was saying so I guess it's not that important lol
Isn't it kinda obvious? It's essentially the same question as, how can your practice cure tetanus. It never did and wasn't supposed to. Buddhists used to die from it and now they can take a vaccine. It has nothing to do with Buddhism
Same for mental illness. There was never a guarantee that Buddhism can cure everything and everyone, but now we have more tools. It's not a judgment of Buddhism, it's just life, and Buddhism operates in area of our relationship to life, any kind of life, in any circumstances and at any stages of technological progress or regress. It's not really a feel good pill like how McMindfulness tried to frame it, isn't a service to provide permanent bliss and pleasure for all like a drug. It's more about our relation to and our experience of wanting all those things
If it wasn't this way, then psychology and Buddhism would've been competing with each other and a better antidepressant could've replaced Buddhism altogether. But they aren't and it won't
Everyone has a human mind. Neurosis and egoism are basically the same for everyone. Some people suffer too much confusion to find the path. Some have no interest in the path. A very small number, typically schizophrenics as I understand it, have difficulty with shamatha practice and may get worse trying to do it. Someone like that needs a teacher's guidance to take a different approach.
For the vast majority, basic meditation is the practice. We all have trouble maintaining attention. That's why there's meditation. If you didn't have trouble then you wouldn't need to meditate. No matter what kind of practice you might do, if you give in to distraction then the practice will be of little value. So you just have to cultivate discipline and do it.
Meditation is the hardest work you'll ever do. The reason is that for the first time ever you're choosing to let go of what you want. Even if you have a job shoveling out horse stalls, you can listen to music on headphones and you get paid. In that sense it's easy because you don't really have to be present while working. You can lounge in a fantasy. But with meditation you're specifically letting go of attachment to thoughts and feelings. That's unprecedented. The normal person lets their mind wander wherever it will and calls that thinking for themselves. With meditation we stop letting our mind wander willy nilly. We cultivate attention. People who are especially distractable have just developed bad habits. So they might have to try harder.
"People who are especially distractable have just developed bad habits. So they might have to try harder."
This kind of talk is why I'm concerned about the consideration of neurodivergence here in the first place.
If by "bad habits" you mean the tactics that children in stressful or unsafe environments learn to use for survival (maladaptive or not), and by "try harder" you mean enlist the help of a trained psychological professional or Buddhist teacher who is understanding enough, then I'll agree with that.
But given the context of mental disorders, your wording came off as quite ignorant of people who are born with brains that are hardwired in ways that make it impossible to function as others' might.
I understand we all have a human mind that can always benefit from meditation, but a human brain is a completely different thing. Your first paragraph showed some awareness of this, but your last paragraph seems to lack understanding of what it means to be neurodivergent.
According to Buddhist view, distraction is connected with egoic attachment. We all have a life history and a personal story, some better and some worse. But attachment to self-confirmation is essentially at the root of suffering. In meditation that takes two main forms. Agitation and dullness. Or speedy thinking and emotionality vs dull, groggy, sleepy, etc. Both are regarded as ego's strategy to confirm self. We're constantly looping through our favorite topics. That's why boredom is such an obstacle. Boredom is not actually a state of dullness. It's a state of agitated yearning for some kind of self-confirming titillation. If we can't have a cookie then we settle for fixating on the desire for a cookie, and we call that boredom.
The practice of meditation cultivates attention by letting go of distraction whenever you notice it and returning to attention. That's a radical idea, especially in the busy modern world where we can have cookies and IMax movies and video games as much as we like. When do we ever decide that we shouldn't entertain ourselves? Never. If I feel like having a sexual fantasy, or a fantasy about revenge against the driver who just cut me off, or if I want to space out, I just do it. If I'm bored then why not turn on the TV or go shopping? We live that way without ever questioning our priorities. With Buddhist meditation that changes. For the first time we specifically decide to let go of whatever catches our interest. That's arguably the most radical thing we've ever done. I don't have to act on my impulses! It's sometimes likened to putting an animal on a long leash. Gradually the animal calms down and doesn't feel a compulsion to wander.
It's taught that before there's a chance of attaining enlightenment, the practitioner will have attained a steady attention, such that wandering mind almost never occurs, even in sleep. That's the Buddhist path. It doesn't mean that the student will have laser focus. Rather, attachment to discursive mind and conflicting emotions will have been let go, so that one can effortlessly rest in awareness.
It's up to you whether you want to do the practice. There's no special accommodation available. Even the Buddha couldn't give people realization. You just have to work with your own mind and gradually train in letting go attachment to distraction.
There are all sorts of current theories about hardwired disorders or developmental issues. You can believe as you like. But if you want to practice the Buddhist path then you have to do the practice. When you see that you're fixated on thoughts, feelings, or sensations, you simply let that go and return to watching the breath, or whatever technique you're practicing. Even if you find yourself thinking, "I'm hardwired in such a way that I can't possibly stop being distracted." Even if you see yourself thinking that, you just let it go and return to watching your breath.
The beauty and profound power of this practice is that it's always workable. It's always now. Even if you've just spent 3 hours playing Grand Theft Auto and your mind feels like a traffic accident, you always have the option, now, to let it go and return attention to where you are. Everything happens in nowness.
That last part is so profound. No matter how far we feel we've stayed, we can simply drop it and come back to nowness right now, to word it clumsily :P
Yes. That was probably the first inspiration for me. CTR used to talk a lot about things being "workable". And it was really true, in a very direct way. Once I got that point I felt like the path was always there. Fast or slow, it's thoroughly doable in one's life. I realized that all my efforts to control diet, neurosis, sexual activity, or whatever, were just more entertainment; more effort to turn the path into achievement when it should be practice.
One thing I discovered the hard way was that much of what I thought was work I'd done on the path was simply self-delusional spiritual materialism for a sense of achievement to confirm ego's identity as a proper Buddhist, with ego appropriating Buddhism and making it a key, central feature of identity. So the path itself was (and still most of the time is) just more of the same atrachment and aversion habitual patterns, just dressed up in philosophical Dharma terms now, so even more sneaky. Its devastating to confront such spiritual materialism, but I think everyone must have at least some spiritual materialism at some point on the path. When one becomes a buddhist there's still an idea of an achievement, enlightenment, for ego to achieve, one thats extremely distant and far off, in which things will then be entirely swell in contrast to how bad things are now. When in reality, the nowness of nonconceptual empty lucidity is all there ever is.
Nobody has a special disadvantage towards developing concentration.
For thousands of years Buddhist societies have developed practice so that it reaches all areas of life and has many different approaches. Tibet is an example. If one can’t easily meditate on the breath then they can do prostrations, prayers, mantras, visualizations, artwork, and so forth.
Don’t make excuses or throw a pity party. I mean that sincerely; it is harmful. No one is going to point that out because it makes them look impolite. Practice trying different approaches and take responsibility as much as possible.
I understand Buddhism is highly accessible and has different ways that it can be practiced, but your first sentence is a false statement. People may need to explore the different forms of meditation that you mentioned in order to find what works for them, but the disadvantage towards developing concentration is very real, and dismissing it is just as harmful as making excuses for it. It's much healthier to be aware of it than to pretend it doesn't exist.
I am not arguing that people have the same amount of merit or the same ability to meditate, regardless of level, otherwise this would contradict cause and effect and the goals of Buddhist practice.
What you are asserting is that there is a fundamental difference in this life.
In one case it can be true, that a person is born with a certain body that has or does not have certain mental faculties due to previous causes.
But whether situationally true or not, in no case is there benefit in assuming one is disadvantaged if the person is capable of forming coherent thoughts and articulating them over reddit. I believe in this case calling one's self disadvantages results in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So I strongly disagree. If you struggle with concentration, many of us started this way, so I would say use this knowledge in confidence to push forward rather than doubting your capabilities.
"In no case is there benefit in assuming one is disadvantaged if the person is capable of forming coherent thoughts and articulating them over reddit."
There's no benefit in assuming anything, but right now it sounds like you're making an assumption about how advantaged or disadvantaged I am based on how well I can articulate my thoughts on the internet.
I understand that concentration is often difficult for beginners, but the difficulty that a beginner experiences is not the same as the difficulties that mental disorders can cause. I'm not doubting anyone's capability to move past these difficulties, I simply understand that there are often extra obstacles in the way of getting there for neurodivergent people.
Neurodivergent people are drawn to Buddhism in my experience. They tend to actually practice as a solution to their negative mental states. They have good reason to, which makes it an advantage.
Neurotypical people are not going to be Buddhist in the US where I am from. And even in Buddhist countries, they likely won't really practice aside from the cultural aspects. In Buddhist countries, taking Buddhist practice seriously can still make a person seem weird.
I believe you are experiencing an obstacle of self-doubt. In Tibetan Buddhism we have the attitude driven in and reinforced that we can accomplish anything, and to think that we can make the impossible possible. I believe you may not have found a type of footing yet but it will soon follow if you keep persevering.
Those first two paragraphs do actually give me some new perspective so thank you for that.
But again, I'm doubting anything. I posted this out of curiosity and concern for neurodivergent awareness, not out of doubt for myself or other neurodivergent people. I have full belief that anyone who's willing to pursue understanding can have great success in meditation and Buddhism. I was mainly wondering if the Buddhist perspective sees neurodivergence as a real thing or if people think it's only a mindset.
There is no respect, they are both real. The contingence applicate elsewhere. :/ Also your course's religious attending stratified samples where your courses proximal implicate they're scientific asceticism.
I heard that in Tibetan medicine, ADHD is described as having a mind that is too powerful for the brain to keep up with. This is why stimulants help; they help speed up the brain so it can better keep pace with the mind.
Now that is an affirmation I can get behind
It was also universally accepted that there are no guarantees and your practice in this life will much more likely provide benefits for the next ones. There are lots of individual examples in the texts, but no stories of everyone in a nation becoming "healed" somehow However, in modern societies people want this particular life not to suck, and for some reason expect Buddhism to somehow work much better now than it did back then, with 100% effectiveness at making them enlightened. Like, literally reading translations of Buddha now is somehow supposed to work incomparably better than living when the Buddha was still alive If a person expects those guarantees, they should search for additional ways
From a Buddhist point of view the idea that there's a baseline neuro-thing shared by most people that can be diverged from is suspect in the first place. This often leads to mostly "normal" people using whatever diagnosis they have as a shield and an excuse, especially today, when even the idea of reducing conditions that objectively make life more difficult and reduce its quality is sometimes attacked. As usual Buddhism has a better approach (surprise, since it comes from people who actually understand the mind) which is that there's no baseline "normal" as opposed to divergent, and instead everyone has their own conditions, physical, karmic and otherwise, that need to be worked with skilfully. This is what makes teachers and community important. This working with conditions also implies taking care of health based on proper advice from doctors. There's the story of Culapanthaka, who seems like he might be classified as "neurodivergent" today. Maybe even worse, he was extremely "dull" to the point of being incapable even of memorizing a small piece of any teaching. But the Buddha gave him a practice method and accompanying teachings that would work for him, and they did, making him an arhat.
Modern psychology also views the brain as just another organ to be treated with drugs. I remember a psychology professor telling me in college: "why meditate when you can medicate". Pretty terrible advice, and it's no wonder that today in the US almost everyone seems to be taking psychiatric meds.
Yes, people are very confused.
Are you indicating that psychiatric medications are a negative phenomenon? All the Lamas I've met have been encouraging of people with mental health disorders to take medication when it's needed.
No, I addressed this above actually. However, useless medication and over medication are real dangers too. There are many conditions that can be cured with a limited period of medication, there are many that don't actually need medication at all, and there are many that do require long term medication. One should strive and hope to get good advice in these matters.
Fair point, I agree.
That also has to do with how horrible it is to live in the US but yeah.
There are many assumptions that aren't contrasted. There's advancement in comparison with 60 years before but we should not simply accept all the concepts and tendencies in modern sciences. Instead develop good critical argumentations If feeling a teaching is difficult remember there are 84000doors and even great masters have struggled until getting the correct door for they
My own teachers have always spoken to working with one's circumstances. We adjust our practice according to what is going on in our lives. If we are sick, caring for others, working alot, in retreat, whatever. We adjust the practice. The same applies to working with our natures. We are all embodied differently. So we work with the capacity of that embodiment. It may be that seated meditation is not the place to start for you. You may be able to build up attention and mindfulness with more "doing" practices. Prostrations. Making offerings. Chanting. Recitation.
I’ve met a fair number of neurodivergent people in Buddhist communities, and they have just as beautiful a practice as everyone else.
Can I reverse this? Don’t think of neurodivergence as an impediment to some goal of attention or mindfulness but rather mindfulness as an accepting and helping with such things. For me mindfulness and meditation has helped just as much as medication for focus and clarity of mind. It isn’t a race to any goal. Just accept what you are experiencing and note it. There is a great little paragraph in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind about “mind weeds” the sort of common problems and mental traps in our meditation practice we fall into. We start out trying to eliminate them but as time goes on we come to accept and appreciate them.
This is a good way to look at it, thank you.
I am neurodivergent and have difficulty with sitting/breathing meditation. I used to despair that I would never get anywhere with Buddhist practice until I found the Pure Land path which involves the simple but effective practice of nianfo (Amitabha recitation). I like to think that Amitabha Buddha took neurodivergent folk into consideration when he made his vows, because he knew how difficult cultivation would be using other advanced methods :-)
Personally as an AuDHD (meaning I have both autism and ADHD), I need both meditation AND medication in order to function! One thing that helps me with meditation (besides Vyvanse) is counting my breaths. Because if I just repeat “I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out,” I tend to lose track. But if I count them, it helps me focus more.
My take is, building muscle is easier for some people than others. Training attention is easier for some people than others. The practice, for both ends, is still the same. It helped me a lot when I began meditating to hear, over and over and over: Meditation isn't about not thinking - it's not about doing or not doing anything. It's just about staying present with what's happening, and in the moments of realizing the attention has drifted, being grateful for the capacity to notice that, and resuming practice.
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I believe you are correct in thinking that you are being triggered from problems you had. I'm sorry you had a negative experience, but "neurodivergence" is a helpful and inclusive term for anyone who has any kind of mental disorder or condition that a neurotypical person does not have. I agree that there are some cases where people place too much value in labels, but in a lot of cases these labels just make it easier for doctor and patient to discuss otherwise complicated psychological experiences. In a lot of cases, people who suspect that they are neurodivergent or have some sort of mental disorder have to fight quite a bit to get any kind of diagnosis from a doctor because doctors are hesitant to diagnose adults since symptoms are so much harder to observe in adults than in children. So a lot of people feel really relieved and lucky to finally get a diagnosis because it helps them understand and treat their disorder. Although it can sometimes be frustrating if the doctor gives the wrong diagnosis.
If you are unwell, seek aid & medication. But if you mean can you still become a monk. Well, that depends on your treatment, no? But it is doable. But ultimately, to be a Buddhist is to let go of worldly matters, labels are also 1 such thing. The question now, do you have it in you to do that?
"Neurodivergence" is only as much a label as any noun is a label. I've considered giving up language entirely but it seems useful.
I can understand you need to use the word to describe your situation. I merely want you to understand that if you truly wants to be a monk & attain nibbana, you can't constantly tell yourself "I can't, I'm a neurodivergent person." & self sabotage yourself that way. But rather, find ways to practice while working with your neurodivergent state of mind. It won't be easy, but it is doable. Easier said than done, yes.
I never said "I can't" or anything else about my ability to practice, and I'm not worried about becoming a monk. Monkhood will come when it's meant to come. I think I'll focus on just practicing Buddhism for now.
Then keep it that way. It is easy to give up, but what is worthy is not easy to acquire.
You will be recommended to do more rituals for releasing karmic debtors to cure it. Buddha's direct commentary tends to be on how this sutra will increase wisdom etc.
While they can be strategically coped with, most of the disorders I'm thinking of can not be cured. Maybe this is what was meant by what you're referencing but any talk of "curing it" is nonsense.
Not sure which ones you’re referring to, but I’ve completely cured severe, lifelong ocd with a combo of therapy and Buddhism. It was driven by repressed trauma, and I had pretty severe symptoms of ADHD as well. Not an easy journey though
What did you do in terms of Buddhist practice and in terms of therapy?
That is not a simple answer but I was lucky that my (qualified) psychologist is also a Buddhist monk, so he helped weave them together. Basically it came down to an understanding that repression creates karma, which was my life and health kept getting worse. Through a combination of therapy, meditation techniques (particularly zen style sitting) and an understanding of the mind Buddhist style, the repressed memories and emotions have been remembered and processed. Body work was also extremely helpful, I used a system called feldenkrais but I believe there’s others.
I see, thank you.
Is coping well a cure? All symptoms never arise? Brain imaging studies have shown that people with OCD often have differences in the frontal cortex and subcortical structures of the brain, areas of the brain that impact the ability to control behavior and emotional responses.
Yes, the brain adapts to trauma, it can adapt back thanks to neuroplasticity. I mean cure, not coping
Doctors agree? Depends on the trauma I suppose. What if it’s really bad trauma that haunts your life and the whole family is affected for years. Nice to get that way my congratulations,quite rare
Yes it’s pretty obvious I’m very different from while I was afflicted. I got sexually assaulted and beaten every night by a family member for nearly a decade, my whole family conspired for decades to make sure I repressed it, so yes extremely severe trauma. The same person then murdered my dog as an adult, which started me down the healing process. If haunted every moment, awake or asleep and destroyed my physical health too. Thank you, it’s been an all consuming and painful process, it’s nice to finally see some healing
That is admirable and I wish you peace
There are disorders that are both nervous system involved plus stable across the lifespan. The one that I have living caregiver experience with is FASD. No cure but as a developmental disorder, diagnosis can lead to many benefits and reduced symptoms, trauma, etc. The saying that if you have met one person with FASD you have met one person applies really strongly. One researcher in the field gave a presentation on accommodations and neurology for FASD. Her analogy was that you absolutely can (in Buddhist terms with skillful means) smooth the gravel road but it will always be a gravel road. There is quiet pushback for including FASD that I have seen written about in one paper where the neurodivergent concept was examined. It does get excluded on a natural vs some agent causing analysis and spaces have subtle gatekeeping, eg rare inclusion in hashtags lists. That is why it may not come to mind but prevalence is studied (1 in 4 in North America, estimated ), assumed to be increasing. The pre-natal exposure to teratogens can cause this lifelong condition and there is no known safe amount, timeing for pre-natal exposure to alcohol. The skillful means include as my teacher taught me a practice of observation. Symptoms change even within a day, seasonally and the goal is for interdependence not any cure. There can often be other diagnoses that go with a FASD, and the FASD leads in terms of approach.
it's not nonsense. it's ignorance on a topic that's just more recently become more known about. neurodivergence was not as it is today as it was thought of long ago. back when the first buddah achieved enlightenment, modern medicines and "coping mechanisms" hadn't been invented yet, let alone the thought of anything of the like. so when they say cure it you and me know today that that is infact a nonsensical thing to say, that it's not something like a physical ailment that can just be cured, however back then it would have been considered like a physical ailment and so if it was talked about at all it would have been viewed and talked about as something to be cured of as unfortunate as that may be to hear.
I get what you're saying but ignorance vs nonsense in this context sounds like a matter of semantics.
ignorance maybe wasn't the best word for it, me bad at word and no word well, so sorry lol but you said you get what I was saying so I guess it's not that important lol
I meant what I said. If it can't be cured, then they are most likely caused by karmic debtors.
It can be cured in your next life if you practice in this one, essentially
This makes more sense.
Isn't it kinda obvious? It's essentially the same question as, how can your practice cure tetanus. It never did and wasn't supposed to. Buddhists used to die from it and now they can take a vaccine. It has nothing to do with Buddhism Same for mental illness. There was never a guarantee that Buddhism can cure everything and everyone, but now we have more tools. It's not a judgment of Buddhism, it's just life, and Buddhism operates in area of our relationship to life, any kind of life, in any circumstances and at any stages of technological progress or regress. It's not really a feel good pill like how McMindfulness tried to frame it, isn't a service to provide permanent bliss and pleasure for all like a drug. It's more about our relation to and our experience of wanting all those things If it wasn't this way, then psychology and Buddhism would've been competing with each other and a better antidepressant could've replaced Buddhism altogether. But they aren't and it won't
Is this Right Speech?
Everyone has a human mind. Neurosis and egoism are basically the same for everyone. Some people suffer too much confusion to find the path. Some have no interest in the path. A very small number, typically schizophrenics as I understand it, have difficulty with shamatha practice and may get worse trying to do it. Someone like that needs a teacher's guidance to take a different approach. For the vast majority, basic meditation is the practice. We all have trouble maintaining attention. That's why there's meditation. If you didn't have trouble then you wouldn't need to meditate. No matter what kind of practice you might do, if you give in to distraction then the practice will be of little value. So you just have to cultivate discipline and do it. Meditation is the hardest work you'll ever do. The reason is that for the first time ever you're choosing to let go of what you want. Even if you have a job shoveling out horse stalls, you can listen to music on headphones and you get paid. In that sense it's easy because you don't really have to be present while working. You can lounge in a fantasy. But with meditation you're specifically letting go of attachment to thoughts and feelings. That's unprecedented. The normal person lets their mind wander wherever it will and calls that thinking for themselves. With meditation we stop letting our mind wander willy nilly. We cultivate attention. People who are especially distractable have just developed bad habits. So they might have to try harder.
"People who are especially distractable have just developed bad habits. So they might have to try harder." This kind of talk is why I'm concerned about the consideration of neurodivergence here in the first place. If by "bad habits" you mean the tactics that children in stressful or unsafe environments learn to use for survival (maladaptive or not), and by "try harder" you mean enlist the help of a trained psychological professional or Buddhist teacher who is understanding enough, then I'll agree with that. But given the context of mental disorders, your wording came off as quite ignorant of people who are born with brains that are hardwired in ways that make it impossible to function as others' might. I understand we all have a human mind that can always benefit from meditation, but a human brain is a completely different thing. Your first paragraph showed some awareness of this, but your last paragraph seems to lack understanding of what it means to be neurodivergent.
According to Buddhist view, distraction is connected with egoic attachment. We all have a life history and a personal story, some better and some worse. But attachment to self-confirmation is essentially at the root of suffering. In meditation that takes two main forms. Agitation and dullness. Or speedy thinking and emotionality vs dull, groggy, sleepy, etc. Both are regarded as ego's strategy to confirm self. We're constantly looping through our favorite topics. That's why boredom is such an obstacle. Boredom is not actually a state of dullness. It's a state of agitated yearning for some kind of self-confirming titillation. If we can't have a cookie then we settle for fixating on the desire for a cookie, and we call that boredom. The practice of meditation cultivates attention by letting go of distraction whenever you notice it and returning to attention. That's a radical idea, especially in the busy modern world where we can have cookies and IMax movies and video games as much as we like. When do we ever decide that we shouldn't entertain ourselves? Never. If I feel like having a sexual fantasy, or a fantasy about revenge against the driver who just cut me off, or if I want to space out, I just do it. If I'm bored then why not turn on the TV or go shopping? We live that way without ever questioning our priorities. With Buddhist meditation that changes. For the first time we specifically decide to let go of whatever catches our interest. That's arguably the most radical thing we've ever done. I don't have to act on my impulses! It's sometimes likened to putting an animal on a long leash. Gradually the animal calms down and doesn't feel a compulsion to wander. It's taught that before there's a chance of attaining enlightenment, the practitioner will have attained a steady attention, such that wandering mind almost never occurs, even in sleep. That's the Buddhist path. It doesn't mean that the student will have laser focus. Rather, attachment to discursive mind and conflicting emotions will have been let go, so that one can effortlessly rest in awareness. It's up to you whether you want to do the practice. There's no special accommodation available. Even the Buddha couldn't give people realization. You just have to work with your own mind and gradually train in letting go attachment to distraction. There are all sorts of current theories about hardwired disorders or developmental issues. You can believe as you like. But if you want to practice the Buddhist path then you have to do the practice. When you see that you're fixated on thoughts, feelings, or sensations, you simply let that go and return to watching the breath, or whatever technique you're practicing. Even if you find yourself thinking, "I'm hardwired in such a way that I can't possibly stop being distracted." Even if you see yourself thinking that, you just let it go and return to watching your breath. The beauty and profound power of this practice is that it's always workable. It's always now. Even if you've just spent 3 hours playing Grand Theft Auto and your mind feels like a traffic accident, you always have the option, now, to let it go and return attention to where you are. Everything happens in nowness.
That last part is so profound. No matter how far we feel we've stayed, we can simply drop it and come back to nowness right now, to word it clumsily :P
Yes. That was probably the first inspiration for me. CTR used to talk a lot about things being "workable". And it was really true, in a very direct way. Once I got that point I felt like the path was always there. Fast or slow, it's thoroughly doable in one's life. I realized that all my efforts to control diet, neurosis, sexual activity, or whatever, were just more entertainment; more effort to turn the path into achievement when it should be practice.
One thing I discovered the hard way was that much of what I thought was work I'd done on the path was simply self-delusional spiritual materialism for a sense of achievement to confirm ego's identity as a proper Buddhist, with ego appropriating Buddhism and making it a key, central feature of identity. So the path itself was (and still most of the time is) just more of the same atrachment and aversion habitual patterns, just dressed up in philosophical Dharma terms now, so even more sneaky. Its devastating to confront such spiritual materialism, but I think everyone must have at least some spiritual materialism at some point on the path. When one becomes a buddhist there's still an idea of an achievement, enlightenment, for ego to achieve, one thats extremely distant and far off, in which things will then be entirely swell in contrast to how bad things are now. When in reality, the nowness of nonconceptual empty lucidity is all there ever is.
Nobody has a special disadvantage towards developing concentration. For thousands of years Buddhist societies have developed practice so that it reaches all areas of life and has many different approaches. Tibet is an example. If one can’t easily meditate on the breath then they can do prostrations, prayers, mantras, visualizations, artwork, and so forth. Don’t make excuses or throw a pity party. I mean that sincerely; it is harmful. No one is going to point that out because it makes them look impolite. Practice trying different approaches and take responsibility as much as possible.
I understand Buddhism is highly accessible and has different ways that it can be practiced, but your first sentence is a false statement. People may need to explore the different forms of meditation that you mentioned in order to find what works for them, but the disadvantage towards developing concentration is very real, and dismissing it is just as harmful as making excuses for it. It's much healthier to be aware of it than to pretend it doesn't exist.
I am not arguing that people have the same amount of merit or the same ability to meditate, regardless of level, otherwise this would contradict cause and effect and the goals of Buddhist practice. What you are asserting is that there is a fundamental difference in this life. In one case it can be true, that a person is born with a certain body that has or does not have certain mental faculties due to previous causes. But whether situationally true or not, in no case is there benefit in assuming one is disadvantaged if the person is capable of forming coherent thoughts and articulating them over reddit. I believe in this case calling one's self disadvantages results in a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I strongly disagree. If you struggle with concentration, many of us started this way, so I would say use this knowledge in confidence to push forward rather than doubting your capabilities.
"In no case is there benefit in assuming one is disadvantaged if the person is capable of forming coherent thoughts and articulating them over reddit." There's no benefit in assuming anything, but right now it sounds like you're making an assumption about how advantaged or disadvantaged I am based on how well I can articulate my thoughts on the internet. I understand that concentration is often difficult for beginners, but the difficulty that a beginner experiences is not the same as the difficulties that mental disorders can cause. I'm not doubting anyone's capability to move past these difficulties, I simply understand that there are often extra obstacles in the way of getting there for neurodivergent people.
Neurodivergent people are drawn to Buddhism in my experience. They tend to actually practice as a solution to their negative mental states. They have good reason to, which makes it an advantage. Neurotypical people are not going to be Buddhist in the US where I am from. And even in Buddhist countries, they likely won't really practice aside from the cultural aspects. In Buddhist countries, taking Buddhist practice seriously can still make a person seem weird. I believe you are experiencing an obstacle of self-doubt. In Tibetan Buddhism we have the attitude driven in and reinforced that we can accomplish anything, and to think that we can make the impossible possible. I believe you may not have found a type of footing yet but it will soon follow if you keep persevering.
Those first two paragraphs do actually give me some new perspective so thank you for that. But again, I'm doubting anything. I posted this out of curiosity and concern for neurodivergent awareness, not out of doubt for myself or other neurodivergent people. I have full belief that anyone who's willing to pursue understanding can have great success in meditation and Buddhism. I was mainly wondering if the Buddhist perspective sees neurodivergence as a real thing or if people think it's only a mindset.
There is no respect, they are both real. The contingence applicate elsewhere. :/ Also your course's religious attending stratified samples where your courses proximal implicate they're scientific asceticism.
Is it just me or is this word soup
I didn't know what to reply to this for this exact reason lol.