When I was young, with my whole life ahead of me, I got depressed often. Now that I’m nearing the end of this particular journey, it doesn’t happen very often at all. And when it does, I don’t usually stay that way for long. I’ve gone through a couple of clinical depressions in my time, so I know I’m capable of giving in to that state. But ever since I came to terms with my disease, I’ve found it hard to take anything else serious enough to get very depressed over.
It took me a long time to internalize Buddha’s comment about desire being the source of all suffering. For me, at least, it’s not desiring “things” that causes me pain, it’s simply wanting life to be different. When I refuse to accept that the universe is what it is, I become out of sync. At that moment my ego demands that the universe change to accommodate me. The resulting internal conflict tears me up inside. Life is hard. Life isn’t fair. I deserve better. The pain is very real, and the suffering continues until I remember one thing: acceptance.
It’s rare these days for me to get very far out of sync. But when I do, I quickly recognize the symptoms. For me, the solution is always the same: meditate. I find that meditation does what medication never could. It returns the balance. It brings me peace. And the suffering disappears as if it never existed outside my own mind. Which, of course, it didn’t.
Fumon In 
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September 22, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Karmanot
Desire may be the source of all suffering, but when it’s not and is fulfilled we are told and may know it’s delusional. I love the tale of death in the Deva world, where the death of a god is signaled by an elegant fragrance. You are right about pain and the challenges it brings to our understanding of what is real, what is true and that which is both. There are times in my life where I could spit on enlightenment when the pain of death was too unbearable. In spite of the long decades of my life and its monkish years I now desire to be fully human and choose attachment to love and the complexity of human suffering with all its joys and sorrows to enlightenment. Perhaps I have killed the Buddha.Meditation remains the only path, you are so right in that.
September 22, 2014 at 9:12 pm
Fumon
Keep at it. It’s not enough to kill the Buddha once — another always takes his place.
🙂
I know that this is a particularly difficult time for you. I hope you have no regrets. There is no better way than love.
September 24, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Karmanot
So true and there is no better way to honor love than by the measure of its loss in anguish—-for now.
September 24, 2014 at 3:22 pm
Fumon
Absolutely. To deny your loss is to deny your love, and that should never happen.