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.

Buddhist attitude toward anger

This says all you need to know about working with anger.

“The Buddhist attitude is to take care of anger. We don’t suppress it. We don’t run away from it. We just breathe and hold our anger in our arms with utmost tenderness. Becoming angry at your anger only doubles it and makes you suffer more.

The important thing is to bring out the awareness of your anger to protect and sponsor it. Then the anger is no longer alone, it is with your mindfulness. Anger is like a closed flower in the morning. As the bright sun shines on the flower, the flower will bloom because the sunlight penetrates deep into the flower.

Mindfulness is like that. If you keep breathing and sponsoring your anger, mindfulness particles will infiltrate the anger. When sunshine penetrates a flower, the flower cannot resist. It is bound to open itself and reveal its heart to the sun. If you keep breathing on your anger, shining your compassion and understanding on it, your anger will soon crack and you will be able to look into its depths and see its roots.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

become a wizard of ahs

What happens when we sit down to meditate? We begin to see the movements of mind. Many of the movements are away from the perceived objects of our experience. Let’s call this the movement of rejection.

There’s an itch, or a jarring sound, or an sudden upheaval of thoughts, and if we look carefully there is usually some tiny micro-moment when we say no to that experience.  Huge strata of our personality may be formed by millions of unexamined micro rejections leading to a baseline restlessness as a constant background hum in the mind.

We could also say there are counter movements of rushing after other types of experiences we feel are pleasant–ego aggrandizing fantasies, indulgences, judgments. But every time there is a preference or indulgennce  in one aspect of our experience can we see that there is a simultaneous rejection of another?

When we say this usually inaudible, pre-verbal ’no’ in the mind, it sets in motion a division and sets the stage for inner conflict. We take sides with one of these self-created divisions in our own mind, and it is as seemingly innocuous as a reaction to a sound of a car going by as we settle down to meditate on the breath.

A subtle snowball of rejection can start. There is little psychic build-up and we don’t ant to fell this. So it gets covered up and defended against, and resisted more. You may become aware that you are pushing away  little psychic snowball and reject that you are rejecting.

Welcome to the vicious cycle of rejection, division, and conflict that is our mind. Although the mind couches this all as a rejection of some external thing (the car, our partner, etc), progress happens when we can see this as a rejection of our own experience. It’s a rejection of our-self.

Watching our two children go from little babies into young children has really help me see some of the processes that often go unnoticed in meditation practice. With this cycle of rejection process I recall when our fist child Uila was a baby, how her little body would express the natural tension from hunger or the need to void. Then the flow into tension reduction as Katina or I would help soothe her back into a return to contentment.

Sometimes if there is a delay in tension reduction, if a parent is not available emotionally, the return to contentment doesn’t get established as a norm. There can be a disturbance is feeling an innate confidence in our own return to contentment.

I like to consider this innate confidence a trust in the natural flow of experience. When there is an erosion of this basic trust we start to lose confidence in our-self. There is a primitive split in the mind. The self is split against itself.

We see this over and over in our mind as we mediate (most of us, anyway,I would say). We replay this dynamic over and over again. Much of meditation initially is watching ourselves get swamped  by the movements of the mind.

We see that although we want to accept our inner experience, it ain’t easy. Much of what we call our self , our ego, was formed by millions of rejections. Rejection is the coin of the realm of self. One could even say that a personality formed as a rejection of the warm, deep expanse of the timeless nature of being. Perhaps.

We need to start someplace in our meditation. We start by seeing that many of our initial experiences in meditation are witnessing attempts at acceptance are actually just more subtle forms of rejection.

There’s a line from Krishnamurti which comes up a lot for me:

“If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.”

The moment you start thinking of changing yourself you are rejecting yourself. This is so clear in meditation.

So what to do?

Simple. 3 points:

relaxation

observation

non-interference.

The skill ids not necessarily to say yes to our inner experiences in meditation but simply o see how we are rejecting them at a subtle level.

(to be continued) ….

from Rumi (1)

“Those who don’t feel this life pulling them like a river.

Those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of spring water,

or take in the sunset like supper,

Those who don’t want to change,

let them sleep.”

to care and not to care

From the poem Ash Wednesday, by T.S. Eliot–” teach us to care and not to care, teach us to sit still.”

Teach us to care about what’s important and not to care about what’s a waste of time.

From the Thai forest meditation teacher Achaan Dhammadaro:

“If people hate you, that’s when you are off the hook. You can come and go without having to worry about whether or not they’ll miss you or get upset at your going. And you don;t have to bring any presents for them when you come back. You are free to do as you like.”

Knowing that someone doesn’t like you, can we just not care and save our energy to care for things which aren’t a lost cause?

There’s a certain old stubbornness inside that just doesn’t want to let go sometimes, you know?

From a poem by W. H. Auden:

“We would rather be ruined than changed.

We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross

of the moment and watch our illusions die.”

Thankfully, our meditation practice reveals to us that climbing the cross of the moment and dying to our illusions doesn’t have to be such a heavy deal, although it probably feels that way for the first few months or years of our practice.

There’s a quiet contentment that comes when we stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Ram Dass offers this unabashed observation: “Speaking after 30 years of spiritual work, I haven’t got rid of a single one of my neuroses. But they don’t have the power to define me anymore.”

Wes Nisker observes: “After a few years of meditation practice, we can even learn to occasionally ignore ourselves, what a relief that can be.”

your original face

Hui-neng (638-713), asked “Without making good or bad in that moment, what is your original face before your parents were born?”

He is asking us what is our original face before any ideas, images, feelings that you have been carrying like so much baggage.

When we look into this question, which means to actually ask yourself “What is your original face before our parents were even born?” we are thrown back on our most primal, pristine self. Just in that moment of asking honestly and deeply.

In that moment’s asking we open a door into one instant of total freedom, uncluttered and unhindered by our mind and personal history.

If we are sincere and ask without expectation, just see–there is nothing to heal, no self which needs improvement, or which could be improved. We return in that instant to our original self.

When you perceive that for one instant, wait a while, and ask again. See how the mind wants to control or own the process. Drop all that.

We begin to see how much we are carrying around. And we also see how one single vertical stroke takes us out of that stuff’s gravitational pull.

In one instant.

“What was your original face before your parents were born?”

Karl Renz has a nice answer: “You are that which is prior to any kind of peace or conflict, prior to every sensation, perception, or concept. All this appears and disappears within you. Longing and seeking are also part of these appearances. You don’t need the fulfillment of any kind of seeking in order to be what you already are. For this, nothing has to come and nothing has to go. You yourself are the fulfillment.”

dropping into the depths

As we get into our yoga and meditation practice, we naturally start dropping into deeper and deeper places within.  We see how this dropping down requires some initial effort. We become aware of the tremendous hold the “surface” has on us, how it holds us in its web of chatter, worry, anxiety and incessant wants.  

One of the reasons we practice pranayama (breathing techniques) after the posture sequences and before meditation is because it infuses a type of energy (prana) which we can use to break free of this gravitational pull of the surface mind.  Without this prana we are left at the mercy of the mind, and this can be very disconcerting, especially if you are new to meditation. One teacher simply says “assume the mind is mad!”—and by this she means the mind is a maelstrom of often unfettered conflicting impulses, get used to it! 

Thankfully with the aid of the postures (asanas) and pranayama we can ride the prana energy into the deep mind fairly easily. It just takes a little practice. Once in the depths the challenge is to maximize our time there, and to integrate it into our life. 

As we follow the breath, or the silent mantra, within, we sense an inner existence quite different from any other we have ever known. Hang out there. Learn to abide in the depths. Nourish yourself in its healing waters. 

The within has a great power to effect the without. In fact, you may experience what I call a figure/ ground reversal, where you perceive quite vividly and unambiguously that the without is actually contained in the within! 

I am often asked: How can I tell if I am in the depths? What does this mean? What do we sense and feel in the depths?  

Here are a few experiences you may have as you move deeper and deeper within: 

You will feel calm and peaceful. 

In the depths there is a feeling of lightness, softness, and sweetness.  

There may be an indescribably pleasant joy of existence itself.   

As you hang out in the joy within, a kind of placid patience develops. It may feel like an inner poise. 

As someone mentioned tonight, you become more in tune with your intuitive self. 

This inner poise is the wellspring of creativity.

As you learn to go into the depths in your daily practice, it becomes easier and easier to repeat the experience. 

When you go deeper and deeper into the inner depths you connect with the deepest aspects of your soul (let’s not get caught up in terminology, you can call it whatever you like). There you sense the deepest meaning and purpose of your life. 

When you live in the deepest aspect of your soul you easily connect with the world. You naturally and spontaneously feel the global sense of things. You connect more deeply with other and empathize naturally.  

Over time and with practice you connect with the source of all existence. This is called enlightenment, although I have never cared for the word. 

The challenge is to integrate the depths into all aspects of our life. This is a lifetime’s work, not because it is necessarily hard, but because the possibilities are infinite, and infinitely delightful!  

the conflict free mode

We have seen how widespread dissatisfaction and conflict are in our lives. We have also considered the possibility that dissatisfaction and conflict (dukkha in the language of early Buddhism) arise as a consequence of our reactive tendency to cling, grasp or push away at what is presented moment by moment through our senses.  

The Third Noble truth states that there is the very real alternative to this push/ pull life: a conflict free mode, unencumbered, free, the end of suffering in which the mind no longer creates problems.  

Sometimes our life is so filled with worry, preoccupation, and chatter that even reading a line or two about a “conflict free mode” strikes us as peculiar or irrelevant. Or perhaps it sounds like a pipedream. So we file it away under nice idea.  

The conflict free mode the third noble truth points out can sound even more outlandish when you read some of the dialogues in the early Buddhist texts about it. There is one exchange, between Sariputta (one of the Buddha’s most advanced follower) and a group of monks, in which Sariputta make reference to one of the Buddha’s statements that the conflict free mode (Nirvana) is happiness but not experiential happiness. One of the monks then asks Sariputta “How can something that is not experienced be called happiness?”  

Sariputta replies, “That is why it is called happiness.” (Anguttara Nikaya)  

Ven. Henepola Gunaratana has commented on this line that “happiness consists of what is not experienced.” 

OK, like that helps …

One way to approach this is to consider that the conflict free mode is best described as what is does not have, in other words, of what is not experienced.  

Ask yourself this—the next time you are caught in some way, what is there when you let go? What is there when you truly let go? 

Let’s consider this daring pronouncement by Ajahn Cha:

 “If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely, you will have complete peace.” 

What does it mean to let go, not partially but totally, as Ajahn Cha suggests? 

Does it mean giving up your stance with someone or something – what you wanted from it, out of it, with it, and even who you were in relationship to it? 

As you go through your week, practice letting go. 

Practice with little things: let go of taking your habitual stand in a futile argument when you see it poking its head, for example. You will easily come up with several hundred invitations to let go in one day, if you pay close attention (mindfulness!).  

Ask yourself this question:  

Does letting go have to be practiced?  

See if you can spot how you get in your own way by thinking that letting go is some long process you master though time. Consider this pure folly.  

Instead of trying to understand everything, or figure things out, simply let go. Let go of your wants, preferences, expectations, and fears. Let go of your concerns, preoccupations, compulsions and remorse.  

Letting go is releasing everything to be just as it is, with nothing extra–nothing special to be, no purification project, no sins to atone for, no wounds to heal, and no past or future.  

Consider this line (I forgot who wrote or spoke it):  

“Sacredness is revealed when there are no alternatives to here and now.”  

This moment –now—is full, alive, and nourishing just as it is.  

Consider this simple practice– when you are emotionally reactive or imposing you views and judgments stop and simply say, “Add nothing to this.”  

Allow the possibility that when nothing is added, peace is already there, or rather—here and now.  

Ask: “where is there conflict when nothing is added?” 

you suffer because you forget who you are

“Within each of us is the soul of the whole.
When it breaks through our intellect it is genius.
When it breathes through our will it is virtue.
When it flows through our affection it is love.”
 
Emerson 

Our essence is this boundless heart-mind. When it flows through us unimpeded by our stuff (what is Buddhism are called the “adventitious contaminants of our mind stream”) it manifests as pure, unconditional love–bodhicitta.
 
We suffer because we forget who we are. We get caught up in smallness, and disconnect from the depth of who we are.  We limit the limitless, as Pema Chodron once remarked.
 
Meditation encourages us to not be afraid of ourselves and to not turn away from our source. This takes a deeply humbling, radical, non-judgmental honesty that gives us the courage to look at every aspect of ourselves.
 
Something has to break the habituated patterns of who we falsely take ourselves to be or just we keep cycling.
 
For me, the following poem, from an anonymous 12th century Buddhist woman, shows what this practice of radical honesty points to.
 
“Watching the moon at dawn
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
No part left behind.”
 
This is spiritual warrior practice! Meditation is a mind-turning practice. Practice orients us again and again back toward our own goodness, our own benevolent nature. And that intention to turn toward our goodness is the goodness in action.
 
So it can be as simple as saying from our hearts “May all being be happy.” If you don’t think about it and just say it from your heart, joy trickles it.
 
It’s magic.

Grateful Dead love song

As we work with extending thoughts of loving-kindness to the difficult people in our  lives, it becomes evident that we sometimes wish to pull back, to not go there, not to expose ourselves, perhaps fearing the imagined consequences of leaving ourselves open and vulnerable.  

Oddly, we may find that it is precisely in vulnerability that we may find a place of refuge, a place of invulnerability. This heart space is a place of courage.

From the Bhagavad Gita: “If you want to see the heroic, look to those who can return love for hatred, If you want to see the brave, look to those who can forgive.” 

When you are held prisoner by your own past, or the past of others, we may see our lives frozen in some regards. Forgiveness meditation is not intended to force anything, or to pretend anything is in any way other than just how it is. But when we begin to go there, to open our hearts to those terrible things which need our love, as Rilke suggests, we may find some inner movements, some warming of patterns frozen in time. 

It’s a kind of dying.

As a culture we seem to have lost respect for grieving. When you do this again and again, this radical letting go of the past, you are one of the “grateful dead.” 

But in this dying there is real life, real love.

Jack Engler, a psychiatrist and long time vipassana practitioner writes: “Insight by itself is not enough, in therapy or in meditation, because insight doesn’t necessarily lead to change. We all know that we can have a very good conceptual grasp of something, or insight into ourselves, and still do the same damn thing we’ve always done. It’s the inner resistance that has to be dealt with before change occurs. So there really is no way around grieving in this transient world.” 

Meditation is creating a space that allows what needs to happen to happen. “There is no way around grieving in this transient world.” Although we are constantly coming up with new ways to avoid it.