Isabel Amorim lives in Rio de Janeiro and is involved with Central Shiwa Lha. She suffered for years from panic syndrome.

I am 31 years old. My father was adorable and was 67 years old when I was born. My younger brother was born when he was 72 years old. I was a welcomed and loved child for him. He was my example of love, justice, dignity and honesty.

When I was 13 he died of cancer. I felt lost and didn’t know what to do. He had loved me but my mother had my younger brother as her favorite child and never hid this. If he did something wrong, it was my fault. If I did it, double fault. After my father’s death, I was a boat lost at sea. My mother didn’t teach me how to behave, defend myself or love myself.  She loved and over-protected her relatives who abused her all the time, but she couldn’t admit it. Perhaps in a hard way I tried to alert her but she wouldn’t listen and would quarrel with me. My relationship with my mother was terrible. I felt she did not like or accept me and I also disliked her. I was even ashamed of her.

After my father’s death I became alone and introspective, and months later I had the first crisis of what today is called panic syndrome. I spent fifteen days in total despair, trembling and vomiting continually. On medical prescription I took my first Valium.

For eight years I was alone, learning things alone and hurting myself. I needed to forget many things and so I trained my memory for this and I also created a private world where I was someone else and happy. Every day I had to imagine this happy world to be able to face another day.

When I was 20 my mother died of a heart attack, spending her last days delirious because of drugs, criticizing everything, including me. Perhaps because of this her relatives blamed me for her death.

From then on I took care of the household and of my rebel teenage brother. I quit studying, stopped seeing all my friends and was incapable of seeing anyone. I began living isolated in a huge city. My crisis became worse and more frequent.

Panic syndrome is a disease with the symptoms that the body trembles without control, almost like a convulsion, with cold sweats. The tongue rolls, and mentally the person feels intense despair. With great speed the mind brings to the surface all bad memories and catastrophic thoughts. You feel certain that you will lose contact with consciousness and go mad the next second. I felt as if my neurons were about to short-circuit. As years passed I began to develop intense headaches, as if I had a war tank inside my mind ready to explode. Many times I wanted to die. Later, all these symptoms would happen simultaneously.

After a crisis would cease, I felt exhausted and hopeless. Sadness was my daily spirit. Despair and an unbelievable anxiety were my companions from waking up to going to sleep. At night I had terrible nightmares of my mother and her relatives.

My first contact with Dharma was at the age of 19, reading a book on Zen Buddhism. It had a strong effect on me; the words seemed familiar and true, but my crisis kept me away from the world.

In 1992 His Holiness the Dalai Lama was in Brazil and his words touched my heart deeply. Those were magical moments in my life. The following year I was feeling better when Fritz, my pet cat, suddenly died. I loved him as a human being, as my son. The diagnosis was cancer. I began to think he had lived to help my life be less difficult. He gave me unconditional love and dedication and I survived because of him. After he parted I regretted I had not been a better person to him, who had given me so much, and I decided to change myself for him.

I began reading more Buddhism and going to different Buddhist centers but didn’t recognize them as my place. In 1995 the Drepung Loseling monks were in Rio for chanting and sand mandalas. Although I wanted to go very, very much, I could not gather the courage to leave home. Later, after insisting to talk to the organizers of the event, I met Marly Ferreira, director of Centro Shiwa Lha.

Some time later, I attended a Dharma course at the center with Spanish nun Ven. Gloria Mallol. I remembered that day with love. At her first words, in five minutes, I knew I had found home. It was magic! I decided to do the weekend retreat at the end of the course. It was too much for my mind to take precepts and meditate the whole day, and I collapsed and had a crisis. Ven. Gloria kindly offered me some coconut milk and said, “Dharma will heal that.” I wanted to believe it, but I couldn’t.

After that, I started going to Centro Shiwa Lha and reading Dharma books. I found myself having difficulty with teachings on forgiveness. How could I forgive my mother and her relatives?

I was treated by a psychologist, three psychiatrists and a psychoanalyst. I took up to thirteen pills of medication every day but the despair was still there.

My disease was always an obstacle for my Dharma activities. In 1996 I registered for the Kalachakra initiation in Australia as one of the benefactors, and also anticipated meeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche. A crisis kept me from going. Marly encouraged me to write Lama Zopa Rinpoche asking for his prayers. I also wrote to His Holiness. Rinpoche prayed for me and His Holiness’ reply was a great blessing.

At my worst times, I reminded myself of His Holiness’ words on compassion, Lama Zopa’s teachings on patience and Ven. Gloria’s words that Dharma would heal me.

Early in 1998 I stopped with doctors and suspended medication, which had no effect on me. Later on I went to a neurologist and in two months I realized that despair, anxiety and need of fantasy were gone. I was feeling good.

What surprised me most was waking up feeling good, something unknown to me. I would wonder if that is how a normal person feels. For many months now I am happy and grateful to be alive, to have a human body and having Dharma in my life. It was not just the medication that changed; I also changed. Looking back I see clearly that the key to healing was forgiveness.

After some years with Dharma, those words I couldn’t understand or accept entered my heart. How I see how arrogant I was, how hard I was on my mother; how she needed more help than she could give, how I didn’t know how to help her.

Last month I had not a nightmare but a dream of my mother. I was forgiving and feeling love and compassion for her. This no pill can do. Understanding karma was also very important. Now I don’t feel so lost.

Feeling the strong effects of the prayers of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and His Holiness for a totally undisciplined disciple made me feel their great compassion. I began to get better when I began to be free of all the anger in my heart. I learned that forgiving an enemy is not absurd. It is love and it is freedom from suffering.

I want to be a better human being, healthy and stronger to help others. Lama Zopa once sent us a card: always be useful to others! It shocked me in the same way as when I first read the teachings on forgiving the enemy and how the enemy helps us to practice. I am beginning to understand the meaning of the word useful. When I first wrote to Lama Zopa I said: “I hate, hate, hate my mother.” It is amazing that today it sounds strange and sad when I hear someone say the word hate.

I must thank Lama Zopa Rinpoche for bringing the Dharma to Brazil through Joyce (Ven. Thubten Namdrol). I never saw Lama Zopa personally nor in video. For me he is Dharma. I received the blessings of his prayers but I know his kindness is greater than I perceive and hope to meet him personally one day.

Thanks also to Marly Ferreira and Norma Gaetani for the support and work for Dharma in Brazil. And a very special thank you for Ven. Gloria for those unforgettable and precious five minutes.

Thank you Fritz for licking my tears, thank you Mani for purring, looking at me even when you were dying. Thank you my eight cats for all the love and support every day. I hope I can give Dharma to them. I hope I can show how forgiveness gave me inner peace. I learned to have hope.