What is OCD in terms of the CWSL?
From the viewpoint of Buddhist psychology, you do not 'have' OCD; because as you have learned in the previous section, Buddhism knows no such thing as an unchanging person to which one could attach such a label.
Rather, you experience a series of successive 'OCD' moments, which arise from an interplay of various factors. Therefore, 'treatment' in Buddhist psychology would not be aimed at curing a certain 'condition', but to handle each moment as it arises; we will talk about how this works in the next article. First, let us take a look at how the Cheng Wei Shi Lun explains the arising of unwanted mental states, like OCD. Of course, each case of OCD is different, but basically it is always a combination of the following factors:
1) objects: The eight consciousnesses take on objects which they perceive and process, and finally they manifest an image of it which we perceive as 'reality' (see section 'Basic Buddhist Psychology'). According to the CWSL, there are some objects, we might call them ‘triggers’, which can be just ‘too much’ for the mind. The CWSL calls them ‘strongly influential objects’, which “overwhelm, compel and wrest control of the body and mind, so that one is unable to escape the influence for a period of time. This is like being stuck in a burning hell or a heaven of bliss.” * (Many OCD-sufferers would probably readily agree about the being-stuck-in-a-burning-hell part).
Self-Reflection: What kind of 'strongly influential objects' have you met and how do they trigger you?
2) emotional disturbances: The CWSL knows six primary and twenty secondary emotional disturbances (the latter are different varieties of the former), which prevent us from keeping up a state of inner peace. For OCD, two of the five primary emotional disturbances, namely 'doubt', and 'flawed beliefs', are particularly relevant. 'Doubt' refers to a feeling of insecurity, which makes the mind unstable and prevents us from thinking clearly. This in turn paves the way for 'flawed beliefs', i. e. 'interpreting reality through the lens of illusion', as the CWSL puts it. It means that we misinterpret what we perceive, or overrate it, so that things may even appear to be the opposite of what they actually are. In the case of OCD, this relates to the habit of 'magical thinking' (the fear that something will come true only because of having a thought about it)**, and generally to the idea that the nightmarish reality the mind conjures up is ‘true’. According to the CWSL, the more desire and emotion are at play, the ‘truer’ we will feel a reality is. And OCD being an anxiety disorder, the amount of emotion involved is HUGE. Which is why it is so hard to NOT believe in the nightmare OCD is conjuring up.
Depending on the type of OCD, there might be other varieties of flawed beliefs. For instance, in the case of religious OCD, part of the problem according to the CWSL is that a person is excessively attached to the belief in an eternal existence in the past and future; and that is why they fear, for example, that their intrusive blaspheme thoughts forever taint their soul with sin (a phenomenon which is known as 'thought-action-fusion' in contemporary psychology)**. According to the Buddha, there is no need to have such fears; if you like, read how he explained the concept of ‘soul/Self’ in the previous section (article: What is a Person?)
Hatred and pride are another two of the primary disturbances, and may also play a role in certain OCD themes. Hatred, for example, may be involved in obsessions about harming oneself or others. Important: 'hatred' in this case does not imply that you hate the person which is harmed in such thoughts, but that you hate the idea of harming them! Actually, obsessive thoughts are very often antithetical to a person's character - they show something which the person has a very strong aversion against, and which they would never ever want to do (that is what makes these thoughts so distressing!).
Pride, in turn, may be at play when we consider that many OCD sufferers are people who set themselves very high standards. Though this is not necessarily a problem in itself, there may be the risk of - unconsciously? - thinking of oneself as 'better' than others, or feeling the excessive need to always be 'best', at work, school, or in terms of being virtuous. This is typical for OCD themes related to perfectionism.
Among the secondary disturbances, ‘restlessness of worry’, surely is one which most OCD sufferers know well. It means that you are nervous and worried, and therefore unable of clear-headed self-reflection. Ruminations are a typical phenomenon in OCD, which is closely linked to this type of disturbance.
Also, have you ever come up with all kinds of 'explanations' when someone noticed you performing compulsive actions, because you were worried that they might look down on you if they knew you were struggling with OCD? Then your mind was set on 'concealment', which means hiding one's flaws for fear of 'losing benefits'. According to the CWSL, this is actually a mixture of the remaining two primary disturbances, namely 'greed' and 'delusion'.
OCD themes about loss which result in hoarding behavior may be related to 'stinginess', i. e. the inability to let go of possessions (the CWSL relates this mostly to wealth, which is not necessarily what loss-themes in OCD are about, but in a broader sense it may apply to OCD, too).
There are many more; you might have felt 'anger' at yourself, because you have still not managed to overcome OCD; or you often indulge in ruminations, analyzing and re-analyzing past situations - then what you experience is 'resentment'. We could go on like this, but for now I will just refer you to the complete list of primary and secondary disturbances which you will find in the article Self-Help Program: How To in the attached pdf-file; you will use it in the self-help program. For now, the take-home message is that OCD is linked to a great number of emotional disturbances, which results in a great amount of inner pressure. And so, you keep resorting to compulsions as a means of relieving that pressure.
Self-Reflection: Do you recognize yourself in any of the above? If you like, you can also check out the pdf-file and see if there are other hindrances which apply to you.
3) nourishment: The compulsion, in turn, is what the CWSL would call a 'nourishment' of consciousness. The scripture lists different kinds, but we will focus here on 'nourishment through contact', which means that contact to an object has a comforting effect on the physical body. When you do a compulsion, you feel a relief of inner pressure, and as a result the stress reaction in your body subsides for a short while. It is just like how eating a delicious piece of cake makes you feel better when you've had a bad day. The compulsion is your piece of cake, and by indulging in it, it ‘nourishes’ you, because it gives you a feeling of relief. However, there is also another kind of nourishment, called 'nourishment through consciousness', which is defined as the power to retain objects; it refers (mainly) to the eighth consciousness. It makes all the other kinds of nourishment even more nourishing! And so, the compulsion not only nourishes your physical body, but also the OCD, because the experience of (seemingly successfully) dealing with stress will be 'retained' and generate a seed in the eighth consciousness.
4) seeds: you have learned in the previous section that everything we experience produces seeds, and that they are stored in the eighth consciousness (the subconscious). There are different kinds of seeds described in the CWSL, but for OCD most relevant are so-called ‘seeds that flow forth from seeds of the same kind’. It means that certain seeds will produce more seeds of the same type. For example, you learn that a certain trigger provokes a certain intrusive thought. As a result, this ‘seed’ will produce more of the same kind and so every time you come across that trigger, your obsession arises. Also, because of the nourishments (see above), there will be seeds for your compulsions, because you learn that indulging in compulsive behavior helps you to feel better. Consequently, these seeds will proliferate, too.
Self-Reflection: Recall the feeling of relief every time you do the compulsion; and then reflect on how this mental 'piece of cake' gives you only a very short-lived good feeling, at the price of a long-term nourishment of OCD (by generating more and more seeds). Contemplate on if this is really the kind of nourishment you want.
5) infrastructures: This is made all the worse by a fifteen-fold system of ‘infrastructures’ which support consciousness. Particularly relevant for OCD is No. 2, the so-called ‘infrastructure of experiences’. It is responsible for making only this, but not that, seed arise in a given situation. By doing so, it lays the ground for ‘anticipated observations’. To put it simply, this is what makes your OCD seeds arise again and again and causes you to always anticipate the worst case lest you do your compulsion! The good news is, there is yet another infrastructure (No. 14, called 'infrastructure of barriers that prevent manifestations of consciousness'), whose task is to prevent certain seeds from proliferating; it is this one we will make use of in the meditations of the self-help program.
Self-Reflection: What kind of worst-case 'anticipated observations' do you indulge in?
...now you got a glimpse of how OCD can be explained by the logic of ancient Buddhist psychology...so, according to this, what should we do to break free of the OCD cycle? Read more in the next article.
* Lunde (transl.), 2018: On Realizing There is Only The Virtual Nature of Consciousness. Distributed through An Lac Publications, Third Edition.
**Drummond, L. and Edwards, L (2018): Obsessive Compulsive Disorders. All you want to know about OCD for People Living with OCD, Carers, and Clinicians. Cambridge University Press.