Hello, I’m Cheng Qing. Welcome to Relief for Life: Forty Introductions to Buddhism.

The recent news of singer Coco Lee’s death shocked many. Her public image had always been optimistic and positive, so people struggled to understand how she could suffer severe depression. Depression is complex; different people need different responses, with varying difficulty. Yetfrom a Buddhist perspective, psychological distress is rooted in the binary logic of either-or.We may pursue a goal passionately, then fall into darkness and feel life meaningless when it collapses.

Usually we can regulate ourselves after setbacks by talking, crying, eating, drinking, or lying flat until the cycle passes. But unless cognition changes fundamentally, these emotional waves recur and unsettle us.Some then sink into serious despondency and see life as an empty journey because the ideal life seems forever unreachable.

More than a decade ago I experienced mild depression, insomnia, forgetfulness, and self-blame. Exercise did not help. As things worsened, I remembered meditation learned during a US visit, practiced at home, and used Buddhist ideas to reinterpret my condition. After two months, body and mind changed greatly and I passed through the crisis.

There is no universal cure for depression. But we canbegin now by noticing daily habits and habitual ways of interpreting events, improving body and mind little by little.

Last time I said that breaking attachment begins by recognizing affliction. We directly feel emotions and are pulled by them; now we learn to identify their causes, distinguishing coarse conceptual problems from subtle patterns of consciousness. Butboth surface and subtle awareness require basic concentration. This is why Buddhism first emphasizes discipline: moderate distance from stimulating environments lets the mind settle and focus.This episode continues with concrete methods for recognizing and subduing affliction.

We previously named sixroot afflictions:namelygreed, anger, ignorance, conceit, and doubt,andwrong views.Wrong viewswrong viewsincludeidentity view, extreme views, false views, attachment to views,andattachment to rules and observances.How do we begin dealing with them in practice?