Transcription
For almost everyone, the first full day of retreat will be a mixed bag. It certainly won't be an experience of uninterrupted bliss. It also realistically is not an experience of uninterrupted trauma. But what I want to talk about tonight is the difficult side of things.
So, calmness. If we're interested in calmness, if we're talking about calmness, calmness is a mental state. It's a state of the mind, a state of the heart. Calmness. So that the development of that calmness involves, necessitates, working with non-calm mental states. It involves and necessitates, you could say, crossing the territory of what's not calm. And in a way, if we are meditating and we're interested in calmness -- we're holding that as somewhat of an aspiration or a goal, if you want to use that language; moving towards calmness -- that very aspiration and movement will tend to highlight in the awareness non-calmness. So right from the beginning, you're setting up a mode of perception that non-calmness, the opposite of samatha, the opposite of that state of well-being, will be highlighted, will stand out in perception.
In meditation and in our life there are what's called the five hindrances. That's what I want to talk about tonight, working with the five hindrances. And these are very human. They're part of the human condition. They're very human states, in a way. Human minds are, to a lesser or greater degree, subject to the arising of the five hindrances. And just to kind of list them now, and then talk about them in more detail:
(1) First one's craving for sense pleasures, or sense desire, we could say.
(2) Second one is aversion.
(3) Third one is what's called sloth and torpor, which I think are words from the eleventh century or something -- basically that kind of nodding, dullness, fog, sleepiness, drowsiness, etc.
(4) Fourth one, restlessness and worry.
(5) And the fifth one: doubt.
I'll go into these. But very important to realize that they are part of the human condition, and something that we're going to be dealing with, and we need to know a little bit how to work with them.
So they're called 'hindrances.' It's a funny translation of the Pali word. But they're, in a way, hindrances to calmness, you could say; hindrances to the mind really collecting and unifying and gathering itself in brightness, in aliveness, in a sort of steadiness. They're called 'hindrances.'
But they're not confined to our meditation practice. They're not phenomena that solely appear in our meditation. They are present in our life. And they operate whether we're aware of them or not. So it's not, you know, just meditators have them, or just mindful people have them. They are there whether we're aware of it or not, in our lives. What's more, our relationship to these areas, our relationship to choices and different avenues, will show up in the meditation. Our relationship with doubt, our relationship to sense pleasure and craving -- same relationship is going to show up in meditation, to aversion, to boredom, restlessness, all of that. How it is in our life, the meditation, in a way, is just looking at our life mind under a microscope. It's going to reveal what's there.
So, these five hindrances. Tonight I'm going to talk about working with them from the angle of a samatha practice, from the angle of definitely wanting to develop this calmness. We could talk a lot about this, and there are different approaches and angles. The important thing to realize, I think, is that we don't necessarily need to be victims of these energies, of these qualities. Sometimes one is going through a day, and they're especially visible on a day of meditation like today, and it just seems like we're victims of it: "Here they come. There it is, sloth and torpor. Here's restlessness or doubt," and there's not much we can really do. Best that we can do is to be passive observers of it, kind of just witnessing, and hoping that that will kind of do it.
But that's not all that is possible, and it's certainly not all that the Buddha in his original teachings pointed to. So he talked about what's called four Right Efforts.[1] And to summarize briefly, they are the effort to cultivate what's beautiful -- so in our case, to cultivate samatha, to cultivate brightness of mind, collectedness of mind, calmness, etc., and all the other qualities, like loving-kindness, etc. To cultivate what's beautiful, and to let go of what is not helpful -- so, for example, the hindrances. And if you are familiar with insight meditation, the foundations of mindfulness -- (1) the body, (2) and the feelings, (3) and the mind states -- (4) the fourth one, which we often don't talk about in insight meditation retreats, is actually about all these different qualities of mind, and strong encouragement to work with them in a very active way. So being aware of the hindrances and finding ways to work with them.
Sometimes, it seems, we're in our practice, or in our life or whatever, and we're just dealing with the hindrances, and we think, "This is just thick with this kind of difficulty. Where's the good stuff? Where's the samatha? Where is the calm? Where is the brightness?" But not to despair. Working with the difficult, working with the hindrances is developing samatha. It's half of the practice. Like a coin with two sides, one side of the coin is working with the difficult.
So to expect that they will visit, they will, in a way, manifest themselves from time to time in our practice. To very much expect that. To expect that they won't is a bit of a pipe dream; it's not really going to be that realistic. Can we see our practice, or part of our practice, as an opportunity to work on these energies, on these habits, on these patterns, that are in our lives and in our meditation? It's an opportunity, rather than a problem. It's a small shift, but it's actually very significant. Really regarding it as an opportunity. It's only really a problem, the hindrances are only really a problem, or dealing with the hindrances in meditation is only really a problem, if they go unchecked and they're just kind of spiralling and becoming these huge constructs that take over everything.
It is possible to work with the hindrances. The Buddha talks about this, and he indicates this possibility. He actually uses the word 'liberation' for it, so sometimes quite extreme in his language. But he talks about the release from the hindrances as a liberation. He says it's like, to be free of the hindrances is as if you had had a long illness, a long, grave illness, and you had to be in hospital for months and months and months, and then the day came slowly that you were better, and you were able to leave the hospital. It's that kind of liberation. Or that you had been in jail for years, and then someone set you free; you were allowed to leave. Or in debt. These are all the Buddha's analogies. In debt for a long time, paying off the debt, paying off whatever it is, the mortgage, this or that, the credit card. Of course they didn't have credit cards, but anyway! [laughter] And then the day comes, and it's done, it's done, and what a weight, what a burden is relieved then. Or one is taking a journey through a desert, or through very difficult, dangerous territory where there are bandits, and no food and no water, etc. And the time comes, the day comes, where one has reached the end of that journey, reached a place of safety.[^2] They're very strong analogies. They say sometimes the Buddha is a bit over the top! Okay. [laughter]
Let's look at these in greater detail. (1) The first one, craving for sense pleasure, or sense desire. This is huge! These are huge energies in our lives. Oftentimes when that's around, in our meditation practice, in the context of a retreat, or in our life, we don't actually call it that. We say, "I need dot-dot-dot. I need this thing. No, no, I really need it. What I really need is a triple-layered double chocolate fudge brownie cake, and I need it because I need to take care of myself in that way." [laughter] We don't actually see it for what it is, and that's key with these hindrances: we don't see them for what they are.
When this kind of thing is around, just seeing it for what it is -- that much is huge, recognizing. And then maybe asking: how does it feel? How does it feel to be in that relationship of wanting, wanting, desire, wanting? Now, sometimes it can actually feel pleasant, but if we just stay with it and feel into it, we actually see it's not a happy state. To ask oneself very honestly, and feel: is it a happy state to be in that desire, wanting something that's not here? There's an analogy in Dharma teachings. It's a hungry ghost, which some of you may be familiar with. They're sort of these ghost-realm beings, that if I remember, they have really tiny throats, and really tiny mouths (I think that's it), but they have huge stomachs. That's right -- they have huge stomachs, but tiny mouths, and tiny, tiny throats, and huge stomachs, and huge hunger. And they are kind of consigned, for however long (if you believe all this stuff), consigned in sort of wandering around, trying desperately to feed this enormous, gaping hunger. And not being able to even pass enough sustenance through the throat. I take all that as an analogy. You know, who knows, but it's an analogy for a kind of state that we can get into: it's just never enough, and we're always oriented, looking, on the lookout for something to feed us. We have this hunger inside us. It's almost like nothing will take care of it. If we're too locked into imagining that something of the senses is going to do it for me, rather than feeding ourselves, nourishing the being, what we're actually doing is feeding that hungry ghost kind of mindset. We're feeding the contraction of the hungry ghost.
So to see this, to look into it. Nothing I say tonight, or actually ever, is just to be accepted. Check this out. Really check it out so it's clear for oneself. It's not a matter of debating or arguing or whatever. Sometimes we might be in that state, and we might just ask, ask ourselves a very strong question: what is actually lacking in the present moment, really? What is really lacking in the present moment? Is there something lacking?
This whole area, this first hindrance, sense desire and craving for sense pleasure, there's a lot to it. It's a very delicate question, because we obviously live in a world of the senses, and we have needs, and we also have pleasure through the senses, and a lot of beauty through the senses. So it's a very wide and deep question in one's life. But to begin perhaps undertaking an exploration of this area. And I wonder: what's perhaps the difference between feeding a kind of gratification of the senses, that craving for sense pleasure, what's the difference between that and, say, a sense of what one might call 'spiritual joy' through the senses? It may not be obvious, but can we experiment with this area?
As I said, it's quite delicate and quite complicated. Sometimes one hears teachings, "It's just about being in the present moment, so that one can enjoy the present moment to the maximum. That's really what the Dharma is all about. That's where you're heading. So if you want a triple-fudge chocolate ice cream, whatever it is, that's great. Go ahead and really get into it, as long as you're mindful, as long as you're really there and really enjoying it." And that's fine. In a way, I'm not knocking this; all I'm wanting to do is ask a question that hopefully you can take on board. So no judgment, "Thou shalt this or that. This is good. This is bad." Not interested in any of that, and the Buddha wasn't interested in any of that. It's more like, is the questioning alive in one's life? Is the sense of exploring and experimentation alive in one's life? Do we care that deeply about our own well-being and deep happiness?
So that idea that being in the present moment and enjoying the sense pleasure in the present moment to the full -- sometimes that can be taken as the goal of the path, as if that's where the path is leading. As I said -- I can't remember when; at some point -- that's nowhere near the goal of the path. The goal of the path is something much deeper, more radical, more freeing than that.
What is it to be involved with the senses, and gratifying the senses, when it's devoid of love? So for example, sex, or being with another person, and it's devoid of love. What is it? Or our relationship with food, when that's devoid of love, devoid of a sense of mystery through the senses. Devoid of a sense of deep nourishment. So, for example, food -- is it just about pleasure? Or is there a sense of the incredible fact of being human and taking nourishment from the earth? There's something amazing about that, and a real sense where the many levels of the being are being nourished. There's a mystery in that.
If I'm only interested in the sense pleasure, and that level, just maximizing my sense pleasure -- again, all this is just questions -- where is that leading? And to notice this; not to assume. But just, where is it leading? Where does it lead me? What happens to my heart? What happens to my sense of the capacity in my heart, the beauty in my heart, the openness in my heart? To check this out for oneself.
So certainly sexuality and sex, food, not a problem in itself. It's what are we, how are we looking at it? How deeply, in a way? How fully? And sometimes -- it's very normal -- in the meditation, there is sexual fantasy, and you know, we either see someone or we think about someone, or we remember or we imagine or whatever, of course. That's part of being human. What tends to happen, or what can often happen is that it becomes quite a mental process, so we're sort of sexual beings from, you know, the neck up, and we're just kind of in our head with some thoughts and fantasies, or wishes or daydreams, memories, whatever.
In the meditation, particularly in this kind of meditation we're doing, it might be possible to experiment with this. Coming again to the full sense of the body, and see what the reverberation is, what the manifestation of those sexual thoughts, that sexual energy is, in the body. Sexual energy feels a certain way in the body. It feels very pleasurable, very full in the body, if one allows it to flow and opens to it. It's not too far away from the kind of energy that we're cultivating through this very practice. Sometimes -- and this is very possible for many people -- it's possible to just nudge it over into a kind of fullness of the energy in the body, and just enjoy that energy instead of spinning off into the fantasy and being lost in the mind, in a way disconnected from the reality of the present moment and the enjoyment of the present moment in a very full way.
I asked: what happens to the heart when there's this kind of sense gratification? And if we're quite sensitive, it's possible to notice, and again, to explore, it's possible to notice, when I'm caught up in that kind of grabbing something just for the sense gratification, for the pleasure, if one pays attention to the heart area, the chest area, just a delicate attention there, one will find a closing. There will be a closing to some degree. Similarly if I'm in aversion, pushing things away, there's also a closing. Quite interesting, but very noticeable if there's sensitivity, a quietness of attention. The heart opens and closes in dependence on our relationship with this kind of craving.
Sometimes we hear about this, and we do take it on board as a kind of "Thou shalt not," or "It's bad to do this." And I really want to get away from that. And sometimes we even try and approach the practice, "Right, I'll just really kind of try and starve myself in the practice, or watch the movement of desire over and over." And I don't know how helpful that is, really. My experience, for myself and for others, is that one of the most powerful things for a kind of letting go of this contraction around sense gratification is learning how to have a wholesome kind of nourishment and pleasure.
Today some people were wondering, "Well, where's all this going with this breath and the body, and feeling the pleasure of it, and making the breath pleasurable and everything, and enjoying it? What's the point?" That's one of the points. That's one of the small points involved, that in time it's possible to have such a degree of pleasure, such a degree of joy accessible to one regularly that it really relativizes and changes one's relationship in terms of the need for sense gratification. As one of my teachers, Ajaan Ṭhānissaro, said, we give up, we come to give up, we trade -- how did he put it? -- we trade candy for gold.[2] So we become less infatuated with the kind of cheap pleasures, and actually more and more able to open our life to something much more fulfilling, much more nourishing, much deeper, and much more helpful. That takes time, absolutely, but to me, that's really one of the big things that's going to make a difference.
(2) Second hindrance, aversion. Like all the hindrances, there's a real spectrum of strength. So, can be boiling with anger, either in our life or on the meditation cushion or whatever, absolutely consumed with anger. Anger is a whole interesting -- I won't really go into it tonight because there's not time, but anger is very interesting, I think; a very complex and interesting energy, again. Generally in Buddhadharma, in Buddhist teachings, there's a strong encouragement to really put down anger as soon as possible, that there's really very little positive to be said about anger. The Buddha's analogy is if you're angry with someone, it's like picking up a burning coal in your hand to throw at that person. You may or may not hit them, but you're certainly going to burn your hand on the way. But I think, perhaps, I don't know, at some level, if we bring a bit more psychological sophistication, I don't know if that's true. Anger's complicated. And so, sometimes we do need to act, we do need to communicate what's difficult. And for me, very much part of the practice is learning how to do that, being willing to do that, inquiring, developing the skills to do that. That, to me, is quite a journey. I'm not going to go into that tonight.
When we're meditating and there's anger or whatever, so often, again, we're caught up in the mental aspect of it: "He said this. She did that, da-da-da. Wait till I get ...", you know, whatever it is. And very caught up in the sort of swirl of the story of it. Is it possible to just come down into the body, and feel it in the body, if it's really strong? Anger is, again, very complex. Usually it's a constellation of emotions. There's probably hurt involved, frustration involved. Somehow, being a bit quieter, being a bit more listening to the body, instead of caught up in the story, we can begin to become sensitive to what we need to become sensitive to. And then let it settle. And then, what's the action?
Or we may be sitting here, and there's aversion to others. So this is quite common on a retreat, especially a big retreat: "I came to Gaia House to have some peace and quiet, and so-and-so is next to me shuffling or sneezing or coughing, da-da-da," whatever, or "I don't like the way they're drinking their tea," or whatever. The mind can just react to someone with aversion. One of the places I practised, there was construction going on. You were encouraged to practise with full-on noise, like it just wasn't an issue. Just learn to practise with noise, with distraction. So it's the aversion that's the problem, not the noise.
In terms of aversion to people here, we're in silence here, and we know very little because of the silence -- and maybe anyway -- about what's going on with another person. I see something that I may not like, or that bothers me, or they're doing this, or they're not doing this or that, what they're supposed to be. What do I know in the silence, about their situation, their situation of health, some news they had recently, some particular difficulty? How little we know, and how quickly we jump to the conclusions, and the aversion comes in. So worth, if this is coming up, or when this comes up, to actually reflect on this: I don't know the conditions that are feeding this behaviour.
So aversion, like I said, has this whole spectrum. Irritability, judgmentalism, boredom, even sometimes body pain can be manifestations of aversion. When they're more subtle -- actually, all the time with aversion -- first port of call is to relax physically. Oftentimes, there's a tension built into all that, into the aversion. Just notice how the body is, and relax it, relax physically as much as possible.
With all the hindrances, all of them, this awareness that I keep encouraging to keep wide and large, all of the hindrances, the awareness shrinks. There's a contracting of the awareness, contracting of the space of the awareness. So when there's a hindrance around, really worth re-establishing the size of the awareness. Make it large again, because the hindrance tends to contract awareness. Large awareness. Also, finding a way, again, the basic practice, finding a way of breathing -- whatever that is: long, short, subtle, very still, however -- finding a way of breathing that helps what's going on. Even when there's quite strong difficulty around, it's still possible to find a way of breathing that, see, "Okay, that feels okay. I can just settle in there a little bit." Might be a way of breathing that feels soothing, or feels energizing, or just as enjoyable, as comfortable as possible. So re-establishing the size of the attention, working with the breath till it's as comfortable as possible, enjoyable as possible.
Oftentimes what happens is a hindrance is around, and there's also, somewhere -- if we don't get too sucked into the hindrance; just a little bit more space -- have a look: it's probably not the whole picture. There may be, there may well be, as well as the hindrance and the difficulty, some place in the body, some place where it feels okay. Maybe just okay. Maybe pleasant is a bit too much to ask, but maybe just okay. But maybe even pleasant.
And if there's a bit more space, one may notice these two things are kind of going on at once: there's the hindrance, the difficulty, and there's also some place that feels kind of okay or comfortable. It's amazing: almost everyone -- and it's, again, part of the human condition -- like a magnet to the difficulty. Like a magnet. For some reason we're obsessed or infatuated with the difficult.
Is it possible, if we notice this, to actually choose the place of pleasantness, of okayness, of comfort? And just kind of keep the mind there as much as possible, just sit the mind there, so it can have a sense of nourishment, of well-being. In insight meditation, of course, we investigate what's difficult, as well, and that's very much a part of the practice. So one would not do this, what I'm suggesting, all the time in one's life of practice. But really, really skilful, because the habit will be to go towards the difficult, contract around the difficult.
Now, sometimes we may be hearing that, and you say, "Well hold on, hold on. What if I'm suppressing something? What if I'm suppressing? Maybe I need to feel this difficulty." And that's, you know, a very good question, a very important question. I think I'll save that question for tomorrow night, when I talk tomorrow night, because it's quite a complex question. But again, in the spirit of exploring and experimenting, especially if you have a background in insight meditation, and the encouragement there is to explore what's difficult, seeing: what can I learn, what can be developed, through not going into the difficult? Through putting the mind somewhere where it feels okay, comfortable, pleasant, bright, etc. There may be as much to learn about our life, our sense of difficulty in life, the whole mechanism of emotion, the whole workings of emotion -- there may be as much to learn about all that through not paying attention to it, as there is through paying attention to it. Maybe, and I think there is, as much to learn.
So, large awareness, working with the breath to make it as pleasant as possible, and just finding somewhere that feels okay in the body. But generally, again, asking oneself these quite firm questions. There's aversion about someone or something, here or elsewhere, or whatever, some person, or even the way something is here, don't like the food, don't like this or that. Is this, this aversion, is this mind state, is this taking me where I want to go? Is this taking me where I want to go, really?
Another question: am I building something up, out of proportion? So this is very often the case -- with all the hindrances, but with aversion in particular. Some situation, or person, or something that they said, or didn't do or whatever -- we're building it up, and it seems to take up everything. Just to ask oneself: am I building this up out of proportion? Firm, firm, honest questions with oneself. And sometimes, of course, with these hindrances, nothing we try works, and then there's always the possibility of investigating them more fully, in a sort of vipassanā practice, which I'm not going to talk about here.
Another. In a way, I see it as part of this hindrance of aversion. In a way, it is. Boredom. So often, for some people, it's a very common and very charged kind of energy in one's life, or lack of energy or whatever, that we have quite some fear of. How much, just culturally, how much of the culture is set up to avoid boredom? How much in our lives have we set up to avoid boredom? It can be that we hate boredom, we're absolutely desperately afraid of boredom. Oftentimes, when there's not so much in it for the ego, for the self in a situation -- it's not really exciting; it doesn't pump me up or gratify me in some way; or it's not really fearful or negative -- there's a kind of whole bandwidth of life which is just quite neutral, and then sometimes the boredom comes in there.
Boredom is actually very interesting. How much do we really understand boredom and what's going on there? And as I said, it's a huge energy in our life. It can be. I was talking with someone the other day -- not here; in London -- and we were talking, and he was just realizing that boredom was actually the driving force for so much of his life, just fleeing kind of huge areas of his life, fleeing into either excitement or fear, both of which had their problems. But he was seeing how much he just didn't want to be with the boredom. And as I say, it's quite cultural, even.
What is boredom? What's going on when there's boredom? What's happening, or what's happened when there's boredom is that we have withdrawn our sensitivity from the moment, withdrawn our presence of aliveness -- our 'sensitivity' is really the best word. That's missing. We've taken it away from the present moment. When the sensitivity is not there in the present moment, there will be boredom, unless something happens in the present moment that makes it extremely charged for the ego. So the presence or absence of boredom is dependent on the sensitivity; it's not in the thing itself. We talk about meditation, breath and walking -- this is actually quite an interesting way of working with the breath; usually, it's just kind of "let it be," and oftentimes it really is like, "This is pretty boring." But it's the sensitivity. When that's there, even something very seemingly ordinary, mundane, nothing to it, becomes full of life.
We may ask, in our lives, what is it that's kind of feeding a sense of boredom in my life? Or is there something that's, in a way, dulling my sensitivity? This is a really, really important question. I am a human being, we are human beings with extraordinary capacities of sensitivity. And it's possible to dull that. What happens when we dull that sensitivity? What happens to our life and our sense of life? How is that sensitivity dulled? You know, one may look into all of this -- too much alcohol, too much TV. What happens when we only follow sort of as much sense pleasure as we want, extreme sense gratification? There's a kind of dulling of the senses that comes in. This is our amazing apparatus for connecting with the world. Amazingly sensitive, and it's very easy to dull it. So to look into these hindrances, as well as to look into the ways in our life where perhaps we're dulling, dulling our sensitivity.
So here, as I've been saying repeatedly: boredom, re-sensitize. Inject some energy into the attentiveness. Really be very present, very luminous and bright with the attention. Just right then, right there, a transfusion of energy into the attentiveness in the body. The more we're attentive, or the more energy there is in attention, the less kind of the afflictive emotions like boredom and whatever else, the less they're able to really grow and gain a foothold. The more they gain a foothold, the less energy in attention. So it's like the energy can be in one or the other, and we can feed either the energy of the negative emotion, or we can feed the energy of the attention. Sometimes the way of working with what's difficult is actually, like I said, reinvigorating the energy of the attention.
We worked a lot with the long breath, and that's very energizing. And now the opportunity from this morning, to really find different kinds of breathing, that may feel very enjoyable, or pleasurable, or somewhat comfortable or whatever it is. Sometimes it can be very lovely for the breath to become, or to encourage in a gentle way the breath to become very, very subtle, very, very refined, very still. Beautiful. When the breath is subtle and refined, the attention has to be subtle and refined. To follow it, to stay with it, to pick up on it. When the attention is subtle and refined, the mind is happy. It's a bright mind. It's a sensitive mind. There is happiness and a sense of well-being there.
(3) Okay, so craving for sense pleasure, aversion. Third one: this sloth and torpor. And this is perhaps the most common one, especially at the beginning of a retreat, and several people have reported it today of course. It differs from tiredness. So one of the ways you can tell the difference is, you sit in meditation, nodding, and it's just a fog, and bit of daydreaming starting, etc. And then the bell goes, and it's lunch time: "Lunch!" [laughter] Suddenly there's the brightness and there's the fullness of wakefulness, and "What's for lunch?" Or tea or whatever it is. Tiredness would be more or less there whatever is going on. Sloth and torpor is something that miraculously appears just when we're trying to meditate. [laughter] It's a little indicator.
So this samatha that we're trying to cultivate, it translates as 'calmness' or 'tranquillity.' But that calmness or tranquillity is balanced with energy. And they deepen together. They deepen in balance together -- more or less in balance, put it that way. Too much calmness and it's sleep, too much energy and it's agitation. A unified mind, bright mind, a calm, collected, tranquil mind of samatha, they're deepening together. It's calm but it's energized. The deeper the calm, the deeper the energy.
Very common, this hindrance. I'll just run through a whole list of approaches, and the Buddha's strong encouragement to be quite active in one's approach.
(a) Sometimes just reviewing our intention. It can be one is in such a fog, one forgets where one is, and what one's doing, and anything at all. So just, "Oh, yeah, Gaia House, right. Meditation retreat. Okay." Just to review what I'm supposed to be doing.
(b) Really, really helpful to reaffirm the uprightness of the posture. So again, there's that fogginess, and the posture just begins to slump, and occasionally even propping up the floor with one's forehead. Reaffirm the uprightness, because the uprightness, as I said, the body conditions the mind, the mind conditions the body. So making the body upright, erect, bright, wakeful, there can be that wakefulness in the mind. So, the posture.
(c) Can be really helpful for some people, if you've got a visual imagination, imagine a bright white light in the middle of the head, bright like the sun. Really, really bright. If you can do that, can be very helpful to dispel the cobwebs of dullness and drowsiness.
(d) Can be, again, helpful to make the awareness more spacious, as I said before.
(e) The long breath, this is partly why starting with the long breath is so beneficial. Mostly people are not that energized; that's why sloth and torpor is the most common hindrance. It's just, we don't have enough energy in the system. Long breath, energizing the system. So if you're practising, and you're feeling, starting to go, getting a little bit foggy, dull, go back to the long breath, and really invigorate the body with the long breath. The energy of the mind sits on the energy of the body, and it will be likewise invigorated -- hopefully.
So reviewing the intention, reaffirming the posture, imagining a white light, sense of spacious awareness in the body, the long breath.
(f) The in-breath is inherently energizing. We take in energy to the body, to the system, with the in-breath. So giving a little more attention to the in-breath and the energizing that happens with the in-breath -- really, really skilful, really helpful.
(g) If none of that works, open the eyes. Meditate with the eyes open, just fixed at a point. Take in light. Can be enough to make a difference.
(h) If that doesn't work, seeing if you can take in a sense, the sense of the space in the room, the spaciousness of the room. There's a lovely, big room here. What happens when the mind gets dull and sleepy is it kind of curls up on itself to go to sleep, sort of tucks itself in. That's actually what happens to the mind when we fall asleep. It tucks itself in, away from the world. Just noticing a sense of space can be enough to brighten the awareness, brighten the mind.
(i) If none of that works, stand up. Just stand up. Don't even give it, you know, more than fifteen minutes of struggling with it. Just stand up, and do the same thing, meditating standing up with the eyes open or closed.
(j) If that doesn't work, then in the walking meditation, very brisk walking can help when you come back to sit, in terms of energizing. Making sure one gets some exercise that day.
(k) And if that doesn't help ... you're probably really tired! [laughter] You should probably take a nap.
(l) Occasionally it can be with this hindrance, sloth and torpor, that what's actually going on is there's a difficult emotion around, something that we'd just rather not deal with, rather not see. And again, the mind kind of huddles into itself to avoid that. So it may also be worth just checking in: is there something that I'm really avoiding here? For the most part, in the context of this retreat, I would more encourage the other methods, but that's definitely an important factor to mention.
(4) Craving for sense gratification, aversion, sloth and torpor. Fourth one: restlessness and worry. As I mentioned in the opening talk, the Buddha put huge emphasis on the way we're living, the care with which we're living, the care and love that we express to others, ourselves and others, in the way we're living in terms of our ethical choices. The actual translation of this hindrance is something like 'restlessness and guilt,' or something like that -- a feeling that, "Oh, there's something I've done or didn't do that really wasn't okay," and it's plaguing one in the meditation, and the mind cannot find rest. Or, "I spoke about someone behind their back, and gosh, I hope they don't find out," or whatever it is. Something, the trail of our actions that we've left, the wake of our actions, is kind of catching up with us, in a not very pleasant way. So this attention to sīla in our life -- sīla meaning ethical guidelines, ethics -- the attention to that, hugely important.
But restlessness and worry -- and again, worry is a huge thing; I really don't have time to go into it tonight, but in one's life, worry basically is there when there are beliefs that give rise to that worry. And oftentimes those beliefs are unexamined. We need to examine those in our lives. Worry can be a habit. We can have a habit of worry, of anxiety. And in a way, we've got to be really firm with ourselves: "I really want to see the end of this worry about this issue." Some firmness of resolution. It may not happen there and then, but just checking: has it become a habit, a kind of default way of being? In a way, as meditation really deepens, one sees through the whole structure of thought, and the whole sort of significance that we give to thought, and then worry, as an energy in one's life, just really tends to dissipate.
So when this is around, sometimes it's around as worry. More often it's around as just a kind of antsiness: "When's the bell going to ring?" The body is itching to move, and we just want to go somewhere or think about this or that. And can we just feel that in the body, feel it as an energy in the body, and keep the body still? Is it possible to keep the body still, and just accommodate that restlessness in the spacious awareness, if it's really strong?
Again, just relaxing can really be helpful. In-breath is energizing. Out-breath, as I said, is kind of naturally calming, easeful, letting go, relaxing. So if there's restlessness, if there's that agitation, tuning in a bit more, a bit more attention to the out-breath, and particularly that quality of relaxing, of letting go in the out-breath.
Sometimes with this hindrance, there's a lot of energy in the head -- thinking, worrying, da-da-da. Seeing if the attention can be brought lower in the body, so kind of stationing perhaps in the lower abdomen, the hara, that centre there. And just watching the expansion of the body, feeling from that place, away from the head. And not to dismiss, underestimate the power of just bringing the mind back, over and over, an infinite, uncountable number of times. It will pay off. It does pay off.
These last two hindrances, sloth and torpor and restlessness, as I said, with all the hindrances, there's a whole spectrum. And they in particular can be quite subtle. We need to be aware of, as well, the more subtle dimensions of them. When sloth and torpor is quite subtle, it's almost just a kind of slight fogginess, or slight dullness, slight sense of not fully being there, and not fully being bright or intimate with the breath. And that's sometimes called 'sinking.' It sometimes even feels like the mind is just sinking a little bit, just sinking. It's the beginning of sloth and torpor. It's just a subtle sloth and torpor.
A subtle form of restlessness is sometimes called 'drifting,' and it's quite subtle. It's just that, when thoughts come into the mind -- as they do; minds create thoughts, minds grow thoughts, like trees grow leaves in spring. It's just that's what minds do. Problem is when the mind goes and follows thoughts, and gets too caught up in that. So sometimes -- this is a very subtle manifestation of restlessness -- it's just an increase in how much the mind follows the thoughts that are coming up. It just gets pulled a bit more. That's called 'drifting,' or can be called 'drifting.'
So as the practice, you know, gradually, in a non-linear way, deepens over the time, to be in a way checking for these more subtle levels of hindrances, sinking and drifting. Sometimes it's related to the effort level. When there's a little bit too much effort, can be just a little bit, a little bit too much effort, we can go into a kind of restlessness or agitation, more like drifting, just following thoughts a bit too much. Sometimes when the effort's not enough, there's a kind of sinking that happens. So it's quite related to the effort level in practice. You can begin to see how all this is quite an art.
(5) Last hindrance, fifth hindrance: doubt. And again, very human condition. Humans, we have the capacity to doubt almost anything. In particular, in the practice, it can be doubting the teachings, can be doubting the teacher, of course -- "Do they know what they're talking about? Do they ... blah blah blah?" Oftentimes it's doubting the self: "I don't think I can do this. Maybe other people can, but I can't do this. No, there's something -- I'm just not wired right. It's not for me. I don't have the capacity, etc." Very, very common, self-doubt. Or we might be doubting the kind of practice we're doing now. So doubting this practice, or even within this practice, "Should the breath be like this, or should it be like that? What's best?" The mind just moves, and doesn't know.
This hindrance is a little less physical in its manifestation than the others. The others, you can really feel them physically, and being aware of their physical manifestation, their physical vibration, is very much key in working with them. This one is a little more subtle, less physical.
It can be extremely seductive, doubt. You can get really lost in this one. But actually, they're all seductive. So just to say, questioning in practice is good. We want to question. We want to question in our lives. We want to question very deeply and in a very alive way, absolutely. The difference with doubt is that doubt paralyses us. We feel completely unable to move, unable to choose. It also drains and sucks our energy. So to recognize when it's there, really recognize. Sometimes it's so seductive that we don't actually realize this is doubt. Just seeing: "This is doubt." Recognizing, very important.
And asking questions to clarify -- to clarify about the teaching, about the practice, whatever. Actually asking, so that there's not that confusion. Sometimes when doubt is present, all we can do is take little bite-size pieces of the practice: "Okay, there's doubt here. I really don't know. Just this sitting, just one sitting. Okay. I can do that. Just one walking period, I can do that." Or just saying to oneself quite firmly, "I will think about this later," and then really do think about it later, but not during the sitting or the walking.
Sometimes we need to ask ourself a question, working with doubt: what do I want from practice? What do I really want from practice? So that we have a relationship, an orientation to practice that's actually meaningful, meaningful for ourselves: "Yeah, I know why I'm doing this, because I want da-da-da." And it's clear. Meaningful to ourselves. Sometimes also necessary to find a sense of appreciation for what we have, what we have got in the practice. Sometimes doubt is quite a negative view: "Ah, it's not working. I don't ..." And not seeing: "Well, actually, this is good, and this is good, and this has happened," and whatever.
Okay, this was a long talk, but just lastly, to kind of sum up: all the hindrances, all of them, what's really important is seeing the relationship we have with them. Oftentimes we're kind of ensnared in the hindrance. We're taken for a ride by it, gone for a ride with the story and the whole complexity of it, and it's blown up into something huge. Is it possible to recognize, "Oh, this is sense desire. This is restlessness. This is doubt," whatever? Just recognize it for what it is. That much is huge. Not get so much into the story of it.
Oftentimes there's aversion in relationship to the hindrance. We just, "Nyeh, go away! Go away! Go away!" Can that be softened? So that we're working with it, and accepting that it's there, but actually challenging it, which is different than aversion. Oftentimes we judge ourselves, okay? We think, "This hindrance is around. I'm a failure. It's not working. I'm terrible. I'm a spiritual failure," etc. Just noticing if that's around, and in a way, can we see the hindrances as human conditions? They will come up from time to time. It's not saying anything really about anything other than that we're human.
So these two pieces that are really important. How much self-evaluation are we seeing in the hindrance? Are we judging where we are, measuring where we are, just because a hindrance is around? Can we drop that, and just see that it's just what minds do from time to time? And then less story in the hindrance. So those two pieces: less self-evaluation, less story. In a way, hindrances are like seeds of energy. They exist in us until we're completely and utterly awakened. Until the very end of the path, they exist in seed form. These little seeds, it's like they have hooks on them. And the seed comes up with this hook on, and it goes out looking for something to make a problem out of, sinks the fangs into it, and starts shaking it up until you've got this issue suddenly. And then it's the issue, and we get completely befuddled and seduced by this, and we think the issue is the problem. We've missed the fact that it's the seed with the hook.
After all, one of the blessings of samatha practice is one, in time, sort of develops what can be called a mature dissatisfaction with the hindrances -- rather, with the stories that they spin. It's not aversion; it's just realizing, "This isn't real. This isn't leading anywhere." One just lets go, less infatuated by it. So I don't know -- maybe half of samatha practice is just that. It's this letting go of the hindrances, learning how to work with the hindrances, and kind of see through the veil of illusion that they spin, the web that they spin of "Ooohhh." You know, just seeing through that, and learning to let go of that, so that there is gradually a sort of lessening of the issues, and the whole bigness of it, and gradually a lessening of the hindrances. And eventually, they just become kind of little manifestations of unpleasant energy. Little waves, that's all. Less and less of a problem.
As I said, tonight, talking about the difficult part -- that's, in a way, the less sexy part of samatha practice, dealing with what's difficult. But just that much, if just that much happened, and there was no pleasure, there was no lovely calmness and brightness and all the other stuff (which I'll talk about another time), and all one got was this letting go of the hindrances, letting go of the being spellbound by the hindrances, being in the grip of the hindrances, if that's all one got -- wow, that would be great! Doesn't sound that sexy, but the liberation, in the Buddha's words, that comes from it, is really precious.
Okay, let's sit quietly for a minute or so together.
DN 2. ↩︎
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, "Candy for Gold," https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0009.html, accessed 14 Aug. 2021. ↩︎
