Zen and the Art of MoodCycle Maintenance

Abstract

Depression was slow to come to Japan. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were licensed there a decade later than in the West. Once licensed, the use of antidepressants escalated rapidly. There is now talk of a mental health crisis in children and adolescents in both West and East, in which a younger generation seems to have lost its bearing, and psychotropic drug use in this age group in particular is now rampant despite minimal evidence for effectiveness. A Zen approach to life was slow to come to the West. Meditation in the form of mindfulness arrived in the United States just before the SSRIs arrived in Japan. Mindfulness, as practiced in the West, shows features of commodification that are antithetical to the “spirit” of Zen. The marketing of both SSRIs and mindfulness points to a commodification of techniques that are at odds with the spirit of science. They also point to an encephalization in the way we view ourselves and our problems that may be getting in the way of us seeing how both drugs and meditation are actually acting.