The first unusual thing for a man of his age was his decision to leave this significantly privileged position of family support and servants to wander exposed to the very real dangers of the age. This was particularly the case as it appears he was entirely unprepared for such a life given the over-protectiveness of the life he had led since birth. It was a time when wild beasts regularly roamed the forests surrounding the villages so the dangers from them were as real as the murderers who frequented them. The forests were frequented both by criminals and the psychotic often in combination. Dangerous animals, wild elephants and poisonous snakes were all around. Sleeping unprotected in the open air would not have been be an inviting prospect for anyone. For a person as protected as Gautama had been without any experience whatsoever of such a life it would have been terrifying.
The second issue relates to the fact that he left his home a week after the birth of his son. Given the propitiousness of the birth of a son in his society if his own birth history was used as a basis for comparison it can be seen that abandoning his first-born son in this way indicates behaviour quite outside the norm for the period. In fact one could say without the slightest chance of contradiction that it was unheard of. As well as this nowhere in the discourses does it say that he expressed the least bit of guilt, regret, shame or remorse in engaging in an activity which would to most be seen as heartless at best. This is in a person who becomes renowned throughout India and later the world for his views on compassion. One has to ask where was the compassion for his wife, his son and indeed his family?
Thirdly Gautama’s excesses and driven-ness in his quest suggest an unnatural obsessiveness so often the hallmark of an anxiety process. He appears to have gone well beyond any accepted method of meditation or process or teaching of the period in order to expand his consciousness.
This leads to the fourth issue which relates to his chronic lack of satisfaction which in modern psychiatric parlance would be called dysthymia, a continuous intellectual dissatisfaction with one’s existence irrespective of circumstance. This is a significant symptomatic complaint of people with characterological anxiety. The fact that the anxious are constantly dissatisfied is related to the fact that for the anxious nothing can be accepted as having solid reality so nothing can satisfy. This leads to everything being in question. If you tell an anxious person you love them they say "Ahh but there is no evidence for it so how can I believe you? You say it but is it true?". Everything has to be reinforced but still leaves the person unsatisfied and unbelieving. They question even their own achievements usually minimising them. I think it is this essential disbelief in anything that promotes the constant state of unreality and lack of satisfaction in which the anxious person lives. They live in an world without substance. To them little appears real.
In the fifth instance the descriptions of his torments are too often repeated, too much in evidence to be ignored. Throughout the discourses and his biographies he is portrayed as a man riven by conflict. These are usually symbolically portrayed as conflicts between his mind and the gods, demons or other malicious spirits but they occur everywhere in his biographical history. They demand attention by their very ubiquitous-ness. Even his enlightenment experience is portrayed as a long conflict with Mara a powerful god-demon which occurs for most of the night. Buddha’s own words were that he ‘engaged in a deep struggle in an effort to find freedom from bondage’. So what was he in bondage to, if not his anxiety and his suffering? The battle that ensued between Mara and Gautama raged on and apparently all sorts of methods were used by Mara including fear, force and sexual desire before he was overcome. Analysed in contemporary terms clearly these were differential aspects of Gautama’s mind torridly in conflict. Some have described Mara’s voice as the voice of doubt that haunted Gautama. Tellingly Mara intermittently appears in Buddha’s biography throughout his life. Eventually he managed to integrate these conflicting thoughts and feelings and resolve his dilemmas. Clearly though they reflect the mind of a man in great torment. If this was the only reported case of such conflict one might well overlook it. However much of Gautama’s reported life is strewn with such psychological conflict. In the discourse called ‘Fear and Dread ‘ he gives dramatic rendition to the extent of the intensity he experienced in facing his fears. He described it as ‘the dreadful fear that caused me to shake all over’. He describes again and again the fear and terror pulsing through him. This was a man who felt the sensitivity of his own psychology immensely. This is of course just what one would expect in a man with a brain with heightened sensitivity and susceptibility to anxiety.
Gautama’s experiences as they are described sound enormously confronting and stressful. They were however most often self-inflicted, the fairly predictable outcomes of his choices. The question that then has to be asked is why did he feel the need to put himself through such trauma? One would only do that if one was driven by particular difficulties and what he says in Fear and Dread pretty much confirms that. Every time the fear arose he refused to be swayed away from the path. He faced the fear and drove it out. It sounds exactly like a man obsessed with overcoming the fears that tormented him. Most people who have faced their anxiety-fears head-on in behavioural therapies would know exactly what Gautama would have been talking about. Almost anyone who has ever suffered with anxiety would relate to his experience.
The sixth issue that I would still maintain is a very convincing demonstration of Gautama’s underlying state of anxiety is illustrated by his openly stated doubts about his ability or willingness to teach others his dharma. Whether rationalisation is used defensively in this issue or not I think there is little doubt it makes its own very definitive statement. This is all the more surprising and confronting knowing that this crisis occurred so soon after his awakening and enlightenment, a time when the powers of his nirvana presumably were at their zenith. At that time at least his anxieties could quite reasonably have been expected to have been at their lowest point. The fact that they were not, undoubtedly speaks volumes about his intrinsic constitutional state.
The first unusual thing for a man of his age was his decision to leave this significantly privileged position of family support and servants to wander exposed to the very real dangers of the age. This was particularly the case as it appears he was entirely unprepared for such a life given the over-protectiveness of the life he had led since birth. It was a time when wild beasts regularly roamed the forests surrounding the villages so the dangers from them were as real as the murderers who frequented them. The forests were frequented both by criminals and the psychotic often in combination. Dangerous animals, wild elephants and poisonous snakes were all around. Sleeping unprotected in the open air would not have been be an inviting prospect for anyone. For a person as protected as Gautama had been without any experience whatsoever of such a life it would have been terrifying.
The second issue relates to the fact that he left his home a week after the birth of his son. Given the propitiousness of the birth of a son in his society if his own birth history was used as a basis for comparison it can be seen that abandoning his first-born son in this way indicates behaviour quite outside the norm for the period. In fact one could say without the slightest chance of contradiction that it was unheard of. As well as this nowhere in the discourses does it say that he expressed the least bit of guilt, regret, shame or remorse in engaging in an activity which would to most be seen as heartless at best. This is in a person who becomes renowned throughout India and later the world for his views on compassion. One has to ask where was the compassion for his wife, his son and indeed his family?
Thirdly Gautama’s excesses and driven-ness in his quest suggest an unnatural obsessiveness so often the hallmark of an anxiety process. He appears to have gone well beyond any accepted method of meditation or process or teaching of the period in order to expand his consciousness.
This leads to the fourth issue which relates to his chronic lack of satisfaction which in modern psychiatric parlance would be called dysthymia, a continuous intellectual dissatisfaction with one’s existence irrespective of circumstance. This is a significant symptomatic complaint of people with characterological anxiety. The fact that the anxious are constantly dissatisfied is related to the fact that for the anxious nothing can be accepted as having solid reality so nothing can satisfy. This leads to everything being in question. If you tell an anxious person you love them they say "Ahh but there is no evidence for it so how can I believe you? You say it but is it true?". Everything has to be reinforced but still leaves the person unsatisfied and unbelieving. They question even their own achievements usually minimising them. I think it is this essential disbelief in anything that promotes the constant state of unreality and lack of satisfaction in which the anxious person lives. They live in an world without substance. To them little appears real.
In the fifth instance the descriptions of his torments are too often repeated, too much in evidence to be ignored. Throughout the discourses and his biographies he is portrayed as a man riven by conflict. These are usually symbolically portrayed as conflicts between his mind and the gods, demons or other malicious spirits but they occur everywhere in his biographical history. They demand attention by their very ubiquitous-ness. Even his enlightenment experience is portrayed as a long conflict with Mara a powerful god-demon which occurs for most of the night. Buddha’s own words were that he ‘engaged in a deep struggle in an effort to find freedom from bondage’. So what was he in bondage to, if not his anxiety and his suffering? The battle that ensued between Mara and Gautama raged on and apparently all sorts of methods were used by Mara including fear, force and sexual desire before he was overcome. Analysed in contemporary terms clearly these were differential aspects of Gautama’s mind torridly in conflict. Some have described Mara’s voice as the voice of doubt that haunted Gautama. Tellingly Mara intermittently appears in Buddha’s biography throughout his life. Eventually he managed to integrate these conflicting thoughts and feelings and resolve his dilemmas. Clearly though they reflect the mind of a man in great torment. If this was the only reported case of such conflict one might well overlook it. However much of Gautama’s reported life is strewn with such psychological conflict. In the discourse called ‘Fear and Dread ‘ he gives dramatic rendition to the extent of the intensity he experienced in facing his fears. He described it as ‘the dreadful fear that caused me to shake all over’. He describes again and again the fear and terror pulsing through him. This was a man who felt the sensitivity of his own psychology immensely. This is of course just what one would expect in a man with a brain with heightened sensitivity and susceptibility to anxiety.
Gautama’s experiences as they are described sound enormously confronting and stressful. They were however most often self-inflicted, the fairly predictable outcomes of his choices. The question that then has to be asked is why did he feel the need to put himself through such trauma? One would only do that if one was driven by particular difficulties and what he says in Fear and Dread pretty much confirms that. Every time the fear arose he refused to be swayed away from the path. He faced the fear and drove it out. It sounds exactly like a man obsessed with overcoming the fears that tormented him. Most people who have faced their anxiety-fears head-on in behavioural therapies would know exactly what Gautama would have been talking about. Almost anyone who has ever suffered with anxiety would relate to his experience.
The sixth issue that I would still maintain is a very convincing demonstration of Gautama’s underlying state of anxiety is illustrated by his openly stated doubts about his ability or willingness to teach others his dharma. Whether rationalisation is used defensively in this issue or not I think there is little doubt it makes its own very definitive statement. This is all the more surprising and confronting knowing that this crisis occurred so soon after his awakening and enlightenment, a time when the powers of his nirvana presumably were at their zenith. At that time at least his anxieties could quite reasonably have been expected to have been at their lowest point. The fact that they were not, undoubtedly speaks volumes about his intrinsic constitutional state.