[Buddha-l] Was the Buddha mentally ill?

[Richard Hayes]

Luke Emmett's thoughtful question about meditation and mental illness has resulted in equally thoughtful responses from several buddha-l regulars. It has been an interesting discussion to follow. Coincidentally, it has taken place while my wife and I are taking a twelve-week course on the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of various mental illnesses. In taking that course it has been interesting to see that many forms of mental illness produce raptures, convictions of having unusually deep insight into the way things really are and various other episodes that are interpreted as religious experiences. At one time or another during the past fifty years that I have been a student of comparative religions, I think just about every major religious figure in world history has been "diagnosed" by some amateur psychologist with a mental illness.

In 1980, toward the end of my seemingly interminable career as a graduate student at University of Toronto, one of the professors there, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, wrote his book <title>The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India</title>. Masson had a doctorate in Sanskrit from Harvard and in 1980 had just recently completed training as a Freudian psychoanalyst. I forget what exactly he wrote about the Buddha, except that there was a suggestion that he probably suffered from anorexia nervosa (a very fashionable diagnosis in 1980!). I also recall that Richard Gombrich reviewed Masson's book and wrote the most alarmingly hostile academic book review I have ever read of any book. Masson was also scolded in print by other psychoanalysts, some of whom pointed out that offering a diagnosis of someone whom one has never met, and basing that diagnosis on third-hand reports of a person's sayings and doings, is the height of scientific irresponsibility. The fact that Freud himself had done just that sort of thing was no excuse, they said; when Freud wrote about Moses it was bad science, and one should no more follow the example that Freud provided in his last several books than one should follow him in an enthusiasm for smoking twenty cigars a day and becoming addicted to cocaine. 

It was pretty clear from the reactions to Masson's book that suggesting that the Buddha might have had a mental illness was not going to be taken lying down (especially on a couch with a psychoanalyst crouched out of view feverishly scribbling down one's every word and gesture for his next book). It is therefore with considerable trepidation (and no small degree of foolishness) that I offer an observation or two about Buddhist meditation and its possible relation to mental illness. 

First, I am struck by the fact that according to the DSH4, several mood disorders (such as bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia and dual diagnosis) are characterized by anhedonia, the inability to find pleasure in normally pleasurable activities. (Why does the first noble truth suddenly come to mind?) The entire project of Buddhism is predicated on the conviction that nothing provides satisfaction, that desiring either the attainment of pleasure or the avoidance of pain will surely lead only to frustration and that the only remedy for this frustration is to learn not to desire. The implementation of that remedy is to follow a series of contemplative exercises designed to make one see that the two principal sources of pleasure in life, food and sex, are both loathsome and disgusting and incapable of providing any sort of pleasure that is worth having (since, heaven knows, no pleasure that lasts for only a few moments is worth the bother). So if one has not been blessed with naturally occurring anhedonia through a deficiency of dopamine and serotonin, one can at least hope to induce anhedonia in oneself by focusing on the fact that a wonderfully tasty meal is only going to turn into foul-smelling shit. In other words, if you really work at it, you can be completely unsatisfiable. With a bit of effort, you can learn to be wary of all companionship and to be happy (or rather, slightly less miserable than usual) by seeking solitude. (If your goal is anhedonia combined with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Zen is the practice for you. Pardon my temporary lapse into SDD—scholarly digressive disorder.)

In his extensive discussion of meditation in Visuddhimaggo, Dr Buddhaghosa (whose name means the noise of awakening, probably referring to the loud snort that snoring people make as they suddenly lurch awake as a result of sleep apnea) warns that meditation, like medication, can be counterproductive if taken for the wrong ailments. People prone to melancholia, for example, are warned not to undertake the traditional Buddhist practice of watching corpses decompose, or contemplating the disgusting aspects of food, or reflecting on the loathsome aspects of having a physical body. People who are prone to what we would now call depression, he says, should seek brightly lighted rooms, beautifully colored flowers, pleasant-tasting food and comfortable clothing. Once they find life enjoyable again, THEN they should do all those practices that make life seem unbearable. For all other ailments, Dr Buddhaghosa has a panacea: "Take too deep breaths and call me in the morning."