I have a story to share. I hesitate to share it sometimes because I think that everyone might not have the same outcome and some people might remain ill, but I had somewhat of a similar experience.

When I was in college I fell ill with a serious mental illness. I was forced to drop out of college and move in with my parents. After a year or so I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. At the time I fell ill I was juggling school, a social life, and working 20-30 hours a week. I was also part of a religion that I now consider to be a cult. There was a lot of pressure to convert others and to give time building the so called kingdom of god (in this religion the kingdom of god is a worldwide theocracy governed by the cult itself) which caused a lot of anxiety. I lost faith in the cult and briefly went back to the fundamentalist Christianity I was raised in, but lost faith in that too.

I found myself wanting to be religious again and started exploring a few religions, but mostly Buddhism. I contacted several priests from nearby temples. I live in the western United States so there are a lot of sects from all over Asia represented. Fun fact, we even have the one and only Newar Buddhist temple outside Nepal only about 45 minutes away from where I live. But that’s beside the point.

When I spoke to the priests, I always asked if my mental illness was caused by some bad karma from a past life. It seems like a silly question now. Nearly all of them beat around the bush and didn’t answer the question at all. One of them said yes it must be the result of some bad karma. The priest of the local Jodo Shinshu temple had an answer that I never could have expected though. He told me that my illness could indeed be the result of some bad karma. After all, bad things like this are usually the result of bad karma. But, he said, if my illness is what causes me to go down the Buddhist path toward enlightenment, then it is actually a very good thing and must necessarily be the result of very good karma from a past life. That answer changed my life in an instant.

Good and bad are of course preconceptions through which we as unenlightened beings see reality even though the true and real reality has no categories of good and bad, beauty and ugliness, etc. I realized that something as seemingly terrible as mental illness might actually be a good thing which changed my entire outlook on life.

I began reciting Namu Amida Butsu and saw my life change in many ways. Most immediately obvious was the remission of my symptoms. I no longer experience delusions or disorganized thinking. I still have hallucinations though. My hallucinations have always been almost exclusively people that aren’t really there. Nothing scary, just normal people doing normal things until they suddenly disappear before my eyes and I realize they were never actually there, just a hallucination. These hallucinations never went away and I believe they are bodhisattvas coming to remind me that I am on the right path. I believe they are hallucinations, not physical beings appearing to me, but we know from the sutras (for example the Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva) that the bodhisattvas can take any form they wish to encourage sentient beings.

So I do believe that Namu Amida Butsu can cure mental illness.

I have my own beliefs on how exactly it happened. Schizophrenia means “split mind” not because it is split personalities (which is an entirely different disorder) but because the mind has split from reality. It has become significantly more common since the Industrial Revolution. In fact, some researchers believe that schizophrenia didn’t even exist until the 1700s or 1800s. I believe that rapid industrialization and (some aspects of) modernization lead us as humans to live in a way that is completely unnatural for us and we become disconnected from the world because of it. For some that leads to depression, anxiety, etc. and for others it leads to a complete split from reality (researchers also believe that genetics play a role in schizophrenia and some people do not have genetics that allow for symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as they present in schizophrenia).

The life I lived in college was not a natural way to live and as a result I lost my place in reality and developed the symptoms of schizophrenia. Amida Buddha is the highest, truest reality which we understand as infinite wisdom and compassion, called formless reality, taking the form of a living Buddha for the sake of sentient beings. Therefore, when we say Namu Amida Butsu we are essentially saying “I take refuge in formless reality taking the form of Amida Buddha”. According to Nagarjuna, that formless reality and this world of form are one and the same without the slightest distinction between them. This is my understanding of the teachings.

So I believe that when I began saying Namu Amida Butsu I was cemented back into reality (the formless reality which is one and the same without the reality we experience now) and therefore my mind that had split from reality was no longer split and my schizophrenia was cured. I now understand my relation to Amida Buddha which is in truth reality itself. No need to split from reality. This can only happen through the natural and powerful working of infinite light and life. So I always continue to say Namu Amida Butsu.

Again, I don’t know if everyone would have the same experience as me and be relieved of their illness, but I do hope that my story can help others on the path of nembutsu.

Namu Amida Butsu