1 Correct Life: Buddha & Mental Health 1 Pralhad Adhikari Department of Psychology and Philosophy TriChandra Campus, Kathmandu pralhad.adhikari@gmail.com Abstract Buddhist philosophy and practices have the power of primary prevention and ability to help humans maintain mental health. Vipassana meditation and Buddha’s eightfold paths are helpful to get rid of miseries. The researches are yet to confirm their alleged capability of secondary and tertiary levels of prevention. This article argues that Buddha was a potent psychologist whose eightfold paths can be said to imagine a ‘right life’. Keywords: Vipassana, right life, right mindfulness, right thought, mental illness Psychologists have started to see the prospects of using Buddhist philosophies as tools for mental health. There is a confusion if the Buddhist techniques can be used for secondary or tertiary levels of prevention but this article will discuss that it can effectively be used as primary prevention for mental health. Mental health is more than just a lack of mental illness (1). It is the totality of ability to realize one’s own intellectual and emotional potential, subjective well-being, autonomy, perceived self-efficacy, competency, ability to adjust, sound interpersonal relationship and ability to function properly to support at least own life. Talking about primary prevention, it is related to traditional definition of mental health. Mental health is defined as absence of mental disease. So, basic philosophy about life implicitly and meditational techniques like Vipassana are explicitly believed to be helpful to maintain mental health. Buddha was the first psychologist born in Nepal. He was an enlightened human. He meant that life is a fact and it should be faced head-on. When we are obligated to live, why 1 Published as Adhikari, P. (2020, February). Correct Life: Buddha & Mental Health. The Ananda Bhoomi, 47(10), 25-26.