I am currently quite ill, which is making me depressive.
I used to be strong, like I accepted suffering, but this time it's too many negative thoughts.
Well, accept them.
Accept the negative thoughts.
They're not your thoughts.
That's the most reassuring part.
You don't have to cry over them.
You don't have to be depressed over them.
They're just thoughts.
Let them come.
Let them be.
Let them go.
Don't worry about what you used to be, how you used to be strong.
If it were real, if you really were strong, you wouldn't be weak now.
So it's good to see how weak you are inside.
If you feel like you...
This weakness is there now while it was there before.
The potential to become weak was there.
The only way to be free from this sort of state is not to strive to have the same state you had before, but to give up both states.
To be okay with this state.
To be okay with the way things are.
Remember that it's not you, it's not yours.
They're just thoughts, they're just states.
They're not something to be controlled.
They're not something to be concerned about.
They're not something to be upset over.
The illness itself is also not something that should lead you to depression.
You shouldn't let the illness lead you to depression.
There's no reason for it to make you depressed.
Illness is a great way to live your life.
It's a unique opportunity that you have.
Because reality is always, no matter who you are,
It's always only six things.
Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.
That's reality.
The biggest problem is when our partiality is in line with our reality.
When we get what we want.
Because our understanding of reality is so biased
that it can't help but lead us to suffering when things are otherwise.
In most cases, it can't help but lead us to suffering.
And when it does that, then we're forced to re-examine the way we look at things, or else to just follow after it and become depressed and even, whatever, suicidal or so on.
But we have to ask these questions, and we have to come and seek, and that's why people come to practice Buddhism, is because they get sick or because they have problems in life.
But when a person doesn't have problems, when a person is healthy, they become negligent.
They forget this, and they say, yes, yes, this is the right way to live, partial, liking this, liking that, disliking this, disliking that, because when I dislike this, it goes away.
When I like this, it comes.
And so we think that's the nature of reality.
The nature of reality is when you want things, you get them.
When you don't want things, you push them away.
Don't like sickness?
Go to the doctor.
Want sensual pleasure?
Go find a partner or so on.
Go find good food or music or so on.
And we think that's the nature of reality.
But when we become sick, we have a unique experience.
When we become really sick, when we can't escape it, then we get to see how ridiculous it all is, how absurd this belief is, how absurd this game that we're playing is.
And we open up to the truth of life, the objective truth
That reality is simply experience.
We lose the idea of my body, my human body, my male body, my female body, my beautiful body, my ugly body, my tall body, and so on.
And we just see a lump of flesh, which is really what it is.
We see a lump of rotting flesh that's going to pass away.
And then it doesn't make us trouble.
It doesn't cause us problems.
It just is what it is.
Even pain can cause us problems.
What is it?
It's just pain.
It's not bad.
And when you can get to that, then nothing can cause you suffering.