If nirvana (Buddhism) is the absence of desire, isn't this also the definition of depression?

It refers to not being over run with attachments, once you become attached you are conditioned to the degree of being confined to that specific stumbling block and can't move onward. Depression truthfully is being in a complacent state, in mind, caused by your own insecurities. But I don't think all desire is bad, I don't think that desire is necessarily bad at all, it just can bring suffering on account of its transitory nature, really what makes a desire suffering is things that are not really a cause of the desire itself, but that which the desire and your mind is subjugated to, that being your lower/animal consciousness and your fragmentation of mind.

There are forces that work within the mind, as different things invoke different things within ourselves, within our fragmentation in mind. If you bring this fragmentation under a single ideal of harmony, there won't be the division causing strain in many directions. Also, in understanding and higher knowledge of what you are immersed in, as in the laws, you can being to perceive the reality why things elude you and etc. A person of knowledge and understanding is not a slave of desire, in stead they have raised there lower nature up to the degree that desire is conquered.

Dear Jennifer,

To me, the problem is in the definition -- it is not detail enough. What happen when there is an absence of desire? The absence of desire comes with contentment for a person who attains nirvana. The same cannot be said about a person who is depressed.

- PimC

I think it depends on what the result is.

One culture believes that if you don't desire, then all is right and you are content.

The other feels that desire is what keeps us going and without it we have no will to live.

It is also the way that you arrive at such a state of non-desire that is crucial as well. If I come to it from a point of having all my desires fulfilled, I might feel pretty good. If I come at it from a point of having all my desires denied, I won't feel so hot.

And then there's the fact that the two aren't defined the same in this instance. The Buddhist are looking at it more as a verb, and Western culture in this case would see it as a noun.

I can only speak from the tradition I am trained in, Tibetan Buddhism (Gelugpa school): Nirvana can be achieved only while in the human body, or at the time of death. Upon achieving nirvana, one is not automatically be reborn. They have choice. Mahayana Buddhists vow to keep on being reborn, to keep on returning, in order to help all other beings also achieve Nirvana. To return to help others until all beings have achieved Nirvana. Nirvana brings a release from suffering. There are many types of suffering. The gross and obvious types (physical and emotional pain, death, illness) are obvious. Less obvious is the restless dissatisfaction we often feel, the little flashes or annoyance or hurt or yearning. Uneasiness. Even just the fact that if we actually, finally manage to get all our ducks linked up JUST the way we want it ... the ducks fly away or we die (nothing is permanent) and we lose it. Everyone suffers to some extent, at least part of the time. And this suffering is caused by US. Therefore the solution IS us, as well. And that is what Buddhism is ... a system of changing ourselves, of seeing and understanding the connection between our desires and our aversions, and how they inevitably cause our suffering. John ignored me today. The more I want John, the more this will hurt me. I can love John without having to want him, and that is the kind of attitude that Buddhism encourages in us. To live life fully without being "hooked" like a fish on a lure, by our attachments and aversions. You mean to tell me you never are restless, bored, uncertain, grumpy, angry, emotionally hurt, physically ill (even a cold will do), that you have never lost something you valued, or felt unappreciated? You have never suffered?

Buddhism does not presume that what should completely give up any desire, but merely to gain the understanding that clinging to that desire is the ultimate source of suffering.

Love, enjoy, cherish, desire in the present moment and recognize that the object of that emotion is temporary and impermanent and no undue suffering can exist.

Depression is a clinging of certain thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc. which cause suffering. Most depression can be treated with a meditative practice involving the letting go of ideas of the self.

No.

Nirvana is the the place where one goes once one has left the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Nirvana is also the space between you inhalation and your exhalation.

It is the place of non-being where what is is without judgment, attachments or desires.

Clinical depression is an obsessive disorder involving fear, self loathing and the desire to be free from such, as well as the clinging to the "victim" mentality as the same is perpetuated by western psychology and pop culture.

The ending of desire is the letting go of the idea of permanence and the illusion of separateness.

May it all be well with you.

Depression is defined, in my mind, as the absence of a will to live, something that hinders your day-to-day life. Buddhism preaches the absence of desire of worldly things- obviously, the Buddhist still feels desire itself, as they desire nirvava. A bit like all other religions, really.

Hi Jennifer, you've asked a nicely thought-provoking question.

Different things of course get called "depression," but clinical depression is a disorder. It's an alteration of your perceptions and brain chemistry. You literally see the world differently, with a tendency to interpret events in a negative, hopeless, bleakly painful way. Depression is suffering. The "lack of desire" in a depressed individual can manifest in an absence of libido, a lack of the energy to even get out of bed, and a loss of interest in things that formerly entertained you. There can yet be desire, though, namely, desire for the pain to end, or, tragically, a desire for life itself to end.

Nirvana is a whole 'nother realm of experience. The extinction of desire referenced in regards to Nirvana is a "blowing out" of psychological agitation. It is a cessation of thirsting, a letting go of grasping, and with that an end of suffering. It is a return to a quiescent naturalness of the mind. It is a lively, life-affirming, purified, mirror-like awareness.

Depression is like a turning inward of psychic agitation (psychoanalytic types actually conceive of depression as a turning inward of aggression). Nirvana is an absence of psychic agitation.

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Absence of desire comes with the wisdom of knowing all is as it should be,desire is wanting something and obsessing over it . I see it as a highly evolved way of being. love and light

fulfillment facilitates the absence of desire