intro to the five hindrances (week 1)

Supplemental readings and listening for the Five Hindrances topic

CD: The Five Hindrances, a talk by Eugene Cash available at the weekly meetings. 

Reading: The following chapters from Mindfulness in Plain English:

Chapter 10 –Dealing with Problems.

Chapters 11 and 12 –Dealing with Distractions,

Introduction to the Five Hindrances

The five hindrances are an important topic. I chose it as the first topic of this study period as understanding the hindrances and learning how to skillfully work with them opens doors to understanding the fundamental topics we will consider later on. The door that opens is the door of the settled mind. The five hindrances are common obstacles nearly everone encounters in their mediation practice, at one time or another.

The five hindrances, as taught by the Buddha, are:

1. Sense-desire, lust or greed

2. Hatred, anger, aversion or fear

3. Sloth and torpor or sleepiness and sluggishness

4. Restlessness and worry or agitation in the mind and body

5. Doubt or uncertainty

As we will see, the process of mindfulness meditation empowers us to identify them when as they arise, and gives us strategies to work with them, so we can let them go and go on to deepen our meditation practice.

We can also see the five hindrances as familiar states of mind that come up all the time, not just when we are meditating, and temporarily block our expression of love and compassion for ourselves and for others.

In the Pali language of ancient India, in which are preserved the teachings of the historical Buddha, the term for these five hindrances is nivarana. The meaning of nivarana is a covering. We could say that the hindrances are mental or emotional coverings of the natural state of the heart and mind, which in one early text the Buddha said was luminous, free and immensely peaceful and serene.

This gives a clue as to how to practice with the hindrances: what we need to do is carefully and gently uncover the natural luminous peace of the mind.

The magic of mindfulness is that we learn to gently turn our non-judgmental awareness toward whatever is most prominent in the mind. When ill will, for example, becomes predominant, we simply turn our meditative attention towards it, so the feeling of anger or ill-will becomes the object of meditation. As we do this with gentleness and patience, anger ceases to be a hindrance, and it slowly evaporates, revealing a deeper aspect of the mind and heart as it does so.

A hindrance is only a hindrance when we are caught by it, when we fall into the trap it creates for us into believing the story it tells us. When we are caught up in them, they interfere with the development of a settled mind.

How to work with the hindrances

As we read the above chapters in Ven. Gunaratana’s book and as we listen to Eugene Cash’s talk, it becomes clear that the primary instruction fro dealing with each hindrance is essentially the same. There are subtle differences we encounter as we get into to each one. Here is the elegance of the primary instructions:

First to recognize it, then to meet it with acceptance, nonjudgmental investigative mindfulness, and the quality of unbiased curiosity or nonattachment.

One way to remember this process is through the acronym RAIN. This wonderful teaching tool has found its way into wide usage and was first articulated by the contemporary vipassana teacher Michele Macdonald.

R stands for recognition

A stands for acceptance

I stands for nonjudgmental investigative mindfulness

N stands for unbiased curiosity or nonattachment.

When we relax into our practice of meditation, all these four qualities are naturally present in the innate quality of mindfulness. Mindfulness is simply the quality of allowing our present moment’s experience to reveal itself to us just as it is.

We don’t do mindfulness, rather we allow mindfulness. It a simple receptivity to what is.

Homework for this week:

Begin a routine of regular sitting meditation. Start out modestly. You can use a timer and set it for 15 minutes, then work up incrementally so you can sit 25 minutes (or more, if you like) in a session. Using a timer relieves you of the bad habit of checking the clock.

At the beginning, aim to sit more days than not in a week (4 out of 7 days). Try to see this as a good hygienic habit, like brushing your teeth (mental hygiene).

If you are new to meditation I  would suggest you use the CD of 3 twenty-minte guided meditations by Jon Kabat-Zinn. You might want to experiment alternating the guided meditations or simply picking one and staying with it for the whole week.

As you progress in sitting meditation, try to make the your meditation your own, by dropping the crutch of a guided mediation on CD and starting to set off on your own independent practice. Do follow the general instructions for mindfulness meditation,  but without the aid of a CD. This will be very helpful as we begin to develop our faculty of concentration in the Anapanasati practice.

Please look over the practices in the “Mindfulness in Daily Life” category on this blog and pick one or two activities described there for extending your mindfulness outward from your sitting cushion or chair.