Hindrances As Teachers

Retreat Day 3: An Aikido student on a Tokyo train encounters a belligerent drunk and an elderly gentleman. The story illustrates a few of the ways we relate to the distractions and distortions that arise naturally in the mind-heart. What we do with these “hindrances” has a profound effect on our meditation practice and life. If we view them as a problem to be defeated or fixed, life becomes difficult. If we view them with kindness, they cease to be a problem.

Transcript

It was a hazy afternoon in Tokyo.

There was a commuter train was about maybe half full,

A few early commuters,

A few late shoppers.

And suddenly this tranquil atmosphere was shattered.

There was this bellicose voice cursing almost incomprehensible objectives and the door to the train car slammed open and this big laborer staggered in and he was huge and he was dirty and he was drunk.

And he glared at everybody around and there was a woman standing right by the door with a small child and he swung at her with the back of his hand and sent them spinning into a lap of an elderly couple.

It was a miracle no one was hurt.

So everybody around them scurried to the other end of the train.

And as they did he kicked at their backs and when he missed he got so enraged that he reached down and began to rip,

Try to pull the train car,

The bench off the floor.

In the process of doing that he cut his hand,

It was bleeding and dripping on the floor.

And at that moment the corridors slammed shut and the train lurched as it began to roll out of the station.

And everyone froze.

They were trapped with this maniac.

Also on this train was a man by the name of Terry Dobson.

He lives in the Boston area now,

The last I heard,

But this was years ago.

And he had been living in Tokyo studying Akito.

He had been training in Akito,

He had been working out eight hours a day for three years.

And he thought of himself as pretty good and he just loved to grapple.

But his one regret was that his martial skills had never been tried in real combat.

Because as a student of the martial arts he wasn't allowed to fight.

His teacher would say,

Akito is the art of reconciliation.

And he who has the mind to defeat someone has already lost.

We try to prevent conflicts,

Not start them.

And Terry,

The young man then,

He listened very carefully to his teacher because he had a lot of respect.

And tried to understand what he was talking about.

He went so far as when he was walking to the train station he would oftentimes go to the other side of the street to avoid the street punks that hung out around there.

He felt exalted in his forbearance.

He felt tough and holy.

But deep in his heart of heart he yearned for the absolutely legitimate excuse to save the innocent by destroying the wicked.

This is it,

He thought as he sat there in that train car,

If I don't do something somebody is going to get hurt.

So he stood up slowly and just held on to the computer strap.

And he looked at the drunk and gave him a long look of disgust and dismissal.

He was going to take this turkey apart.

But for Terry the drunk had to make the first move.

And he wanted him good and angry.

So he pursed his lips and blew him an insolent kiss.

Aha!

The drunk said when he saw him there,

I'm going to give you a lesson in manners.

And he gathered himself and just before he charged there was this voice that said,

Hey!

It was ear splitting.

And it had this strangely joyous and lilting quality.

It was as if you and a friend had been looking for something very important that had been lost.

And you looked and you looked and you came upon it.

Hey!

The big drunk turned to his right.

Terry turned to his left.

And there sitting on one of the train benches was this elderly Japanese gentleman.

He looked to be easily well into the 70s,

Dressed immaculately in the suit and tie.

And he was just beaming delightedly up at this drunk.

Come here,

He said.

Come here.

I want to talk to you.

And he waved his hand and the big drunk staggered towards him as if pulled on a string and planted his feet in front of him.

Why the heck should I talk to you?

Spittle sprayed all over the little man.

Meanwhile,

Terry was looking at his back and he thought,

He takes one more step,

One more step towards that man.

I'm going to drop him in his socks.

But this elderly gentleman,

He just kept beaming up at the drunk and he said,

What you been drinking?

I've been drinking sake and it's none of your damn business.

Oh,

That's wonderful.

That's wonderful.

You know,

I like sake too.

Every night,

Me and my wife,

She's 86,

You know,

We get our sake and we go out in the back and we sit on this bench that my grandfather made many,

Many years ago.

And we sit there at sunset and look at our persimmons tree.

We worry about if it's being damaged by all the weather we've had.

It's actually done quite well when you consider the quality of the soil.

It's so wonderful to sit there,

Me and my wife and our sake and the persimmons tree watching the sun go down.

And he just beamed at this big drunk.

The big drunk was standing there and his face began to soften a little bit and his fist unclenched as he was trying to follow the old man's conversation.

And he looked down and he said,

Yeah,

I like persimmons too.

And then his voice kind of trailed off in confusion.

The little man said,

Yes,

And I bet you have a wonderful wife too.

Nah,

She died.

And very slowly,

He began to rock back and forth with the movement of the train.

And he said,

I ain't got no wife.

I ain't got no job.

I ain't got no home.

I feel so ashamed and the tears were rolling down his cheeks and these spasms of despair were rippling up through his body.

Meanwhile,

There was Terry.

He began to feel ashamed.

He stood there and as well scrubbed innocence and make the world safe against terrorist righteousness,

He felt dirtier than the drunk.

The little man said,

My,

My,

That is a difficult predicament indeed.

You better come sit down here and tell me about it.

So by this time,

The train was pulling into Terry's station,

So he turned to leave.

And just as he was stepping off the train,

He looked back and there was the big drunk sprawled out on the bench with his head on the old man's lap,

Who was stroking his filthy matted hair.

And he stepped off the train.

A few minutes later,

He was standing alone on the train station,

Just watching it clatter off into the distance.

And he thought,

At last he had seen Aikido tried an actual combat.

The essence of it was kindness.

So this evening,

I would like us to reflect on the hindrances.

If we see the hindrances as a problem,

Then like Terry,

We want to defeat them.

We want to fix them.

We want to overcome them.

We want to change them somehow.

But if we view hindrances with kind interest of that elderly gentleman,

Then they cease to be a problem.

They cease to be a problem.

They may fade away or they may lay their head on our laps,

But they cease to be a problem.

So today is the end of your first full day of retreat.

And so by now,

I trust that you're all very familiar with hindrances.

They may not have been as dramatic or colorful as the drunk.

You know,

Sometimes they're just seeing little lullabies to us or whispering our minds.

And sometimes they're big and rageful.

So hindrances are all the things that come into our mind and take our attention away.

One would rather have it being rested,

Resting peacefully.

I usually find the first day of a retreat to be a kind of a slow motion train wreck.

I think I mentioned it the other day,

As all the fatigue and stress that you've been carrying around starts to come to the surface,

Seems to derail any of the momentum that you would like to have.

So I would say that if the day has been difficult,

You're right on course.

Just exactly where you need to be.

Welcome.

And if the day has gone very well,

You're welcome as well.

Whatever the case,

We're all going to have lots and lots of distractions as we go through the week.

And as I said,

In this practice,

How we relate to distractions is probably the most important aspect.

The most important aspect of the whole practice.

If we view them as drunkards,

Then we have a fight on our hands.

But if we view them as friends,

Then they're really not a problem.

So what I'd like to do tonight is I would like to,

First of all,

Offer three different perspectives on hindrances.

Three different sort of images or ways to think about what they are.

We're going to look at hindrances as,

First of all,

As crossed intentions,

Mixed intentions.

And we're going to look at them as friends and personal trainers.

And then third,

We'll look at them as a split between self and other.

And then if there's time,

I want to go into a sutta where the Buddha talked explicitly about 11 hindrances.

And it'd be fun to kind of go through that list and sort of brainstorm about different ways to deal with them.

So we'll see how the time goes.

But before I get to any of that,

The question we want to look at is what is the problem with hindrances anyway?

There is a problem with them.

Anybody want to take a shot at that?

What the primary difficulty with hindrances is?

Tension.

What about tension?

What's the problem with tension?

Yeah.

Trace tension in the body and mind.

And what's the problem with that?

Diminishes awareness.

Pardon?

Diminishes awareness.

Diminishes awareness.

Yeah.

Creates a tension.

And what that tension does is it actually distorts our perception.

If it wasn't for the distortion,

That actually wouldn't be as big of an issue.

But it distorts our perception and when it does that,

It distorts our thinking and it distorts our decision making.

So at the core of every hindrance is tension.

We want something,

We don't want something,

We don't want to deal with something,

Liking,

Disliking,

Confusion.

And this creates all this distortion.

The tension itself is simply a biological reflex.

It's really quite innocent.

Like the drunkard in the story,

He wasn't evil.

He was just brokenhearted.

And hindrances are like that.

They create all kinds of mischief.

But I would prefer not to give them moralistic names.

You know,

In the suttas they're called defilements,

They're called taints,

Tankers.

Effluences,

All these sort of nasty labels.

But they are just an innocent biological response which has this effect of distorting our thinking and perception and all kinds of things.

But to get moralistic about it,

I just think sends us off in the wrong direction.

So a hindrance shows us where there's a distortion.

And in Pali,

The language that suttas are recorded in,

The word for hindrance is nivarana.

Not to be confused with nirvana.

Nivarana.

And nivarana literally means a covering.

Sometimes translated as veil.

So a hindrance is something that covers an important truth.

And so that's the bad news.

It covers something that's very important.

The good news is it shows us exactly where to find that.

We just have to lift the covering.

So how do we lift the covering?

Awareness.

Awareness?

Looking for something more specific?

Awareness is part of it.

Six Rs.

Six Rs.

When in doubt,

Just say six Rs.

When in doubt,

You know.

So yes,

With awareness you recognize there's some tension there.

You release it.

You let it be.

Relax the tension inside.

Allow that to soften.

Smile.

And it has the feeling that there's this distortion or something that's bothering you.

And it oftentimes feels like you're relaxing into it.

You're not relaxing away from it or pushing it.

You're just softening into it.

And then we repeat that.

Soften,

Smile,

Go back to the object of meditation and then repeat it any time your mind gets hijacked.

If your mind is not taking off the meta,

You can just ignore it.

You just ignore the distraction.

Don't make a big deal of it.

But if it gets completely taken off,

You six R it.

And this is incredibly effective in dealing with hindrances.

Most of the time.

Most of the time.

And so if you six R and the hindrance,

Even if it just may come back but not quite as strong over time,

It fades away.

It's no problem.

But sometimes there are these hindrances that no matter what you do,

They just keep coming back with the same vigor over and over and over again.

And in this case,

This is what we want to talk about tonight.

When the six R's by themselves aren't quite enough,

Then what happens is we need to investigate the hindrance just a little bit.

Let's actually spend a little more time with a recognition step to see what's going on.

Is that a frog?

What a blessing.

So sometimes when a hindrance just keeps coming back with all its old vigor,

Part of the problem is that we have mixed intentions.

We want two different things to contradict each other.

And maybe one of them we don't like to recognize so much.

So like Terry,

At first we may see the hindrance as this nuisance that's disrupting a pleasant afternoon.

Beautiful day in this hindrance.

Or a burglar who sneaks in in the middle of the night.

Or like an unshaven guest who shows up and says,

Or like an unshaven guest who shows up at the dinner table unannounced.

And we think,

Where did this come from?

I didn't invite it in.

But what I would like to suggest is that in fact you did.

I don't think anything ever comes into our mind hard without some kind of invitation from us.

And if you don't remember enticing it in,

If you don't recognize your signature on the letter of introduction,

Then it's an opportunity to look a little more deeply into your psychophysical system to see into the dusty corners,

Where you might not see clearly what's going on in there.

I think it's really rare that we have just one intention.

Usually we have multiple intentions.

Terry wanted to be this good,

Peaceful student of Akito.

And he also secretly wanted a good excuse to beat the tar out of an evil person.

So mixed intentions.

You may be sitting there meditating.

And what's going on in mind is a fight with your boss.

You think,

I'm sick and tired of this fight.

I don't want it.

It's disturbing my meditation.

I really don't want it here.

And yet there may be some part of you that would really like to win the fight.

Or would like to have a few good zingers in your arsenal,

Just in case you get a chance.

Or maybe you're sitting there and some sexual fantasies come up.

You think,

I don't want this disturbing my meditation.

Maybe there's part of your system that actually kind of enjoys them.

So they're mixed intentions.

So one of the reasons hindrances come back and stick is because we have these mixed intentions.

And they're going to keep coming up.

Until we actually recognize our mixed intentions.

And six are all of them.

Six are each one of them.

And then it will begin to soften.

So if you find yourself dogged by a hindrance that keeps on coming back,

You may want to just sit back a little bit and see if there's some place,

If there's some part of it in there that you would really like to win the fight.

Or if there's some part of it in there that you would really like that you might enjoy in some way.

So you can six are that.

There's one caveat to this.

It's to understand what an invitation truly is that actually bring a hindrance in.

The rule,

I think it's a universal law is we actually get what we put our energy into.

So if we put our energy into wanting something,

It will come.

If we put our energy into not wanting something,

It will come.

If we put our energy in trying not to think about something,

It will come.

So the mixed intention may not be that you actually want two things,

But there's something you really don't want and that will draw it.

That creates the causes and conditions that will bring a hindrance in.

Does that make sense?

OK.

So those are mixed intentions.

Another way to look at hindrances are as a friend and a personal trainer,

Your own personal spiritual trainer.

Rumi has this wonderful poem about this.

Rumi the Frog.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival,

A joy,

A depression,

A meanness.

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

Still treat each guest honorably.

It may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought,

The shame,

The malice.

Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

So rather than viewing the hindrance as a troublemaker across intention,

We can also think about them as a guide and a personal spiritual trainer.

I had a personal trainer at the gym a couple of years ago.

Ivan was great.

He was great.

He actually grew up in the Watts area of Los Angeles.

And he was lean.

He was athletic,

Short guy.

He ran track a lot.

Well-trained athlete.

And he also had a degree in kinesiology and was finishing up his degree in nursing.

So he had both the frame of reference of a highly trained athlete and also a fair amount of medical knowledge coming.

And he had a phenomenal memory.

At the gym,

I'd see these other trainers out there running around with their clipboards,

Writing down what their clients were doing.

Ivan never wrote anything down.

But he always remembered what I had done last time,

How many repetitions on what machine,

And what weight,

And all that.

And he knew when to push me.

The mind gives out before our body does.

The mind will think we've had too much,

While the body still has.

If it was the opposite,

We'd be in trouble,

Right?

If the body gave out before the mind did.

But the mind will sometimes collapse when the body still has more energy.

So he knew when to push me.

And he knew when to joke with me.

And he knew when to get me to back off.

I walked him there really tired once.

And he said,

Go home.

And I just went so much faster with his guidance and support.

So hindrances are personal trainers that know our energy system sometimes better than we do.

And they have phenomenal memories.

They don't forget anything.

And we can use them to deepen our practice.

The difficulty with them is that all they can do is show us where the distortion is.

They don't do the work for us.

We have to do the work.

But they can show us where it is.

There's another difficulty with hindrances as personal trainers.

They all have Asperger's syndrome.

They have no awareness of social niceties.

You can be worn out and think,

Today I just really don't want to deal with this.

And they don't have a clue.

They are not tuned into our moods,

Our please,

Our likes and dislikes.

They just know where the distortion is.

And they show us where it is.

And if we don't want to look at it,

It feels like they're rubbing our nose in the dirt.

But they just don't get it.

They just don't get it.

However,

If you really want to move along quickly more than anything else,

They will show you right where the work needs to be done.

They're just great.

And for me,

When I think of a quality that I look for in a friend,

One of the things that I'm always interested in is somebody who can call me on my games.

Not that I try to play games with people,

But I get distorted every once in a while.

And a true friend is one who can say,

You know,

Doug,

I think you're a little deluded on this one.

Hindrances have no trouble at all telling us where we're deluded.

They just don't understand social niceties.

And would you rather have a friend who says you're brilliant when you're deluded or a friend who says you're deluded when you think you're brilliant?

So those are hindrances as trainers.

So crossed intentions,

Trainers,

The third way that we can look at these.

Is this clear so far?

OK,

With me?

OK.

So the third way we can look at them is a split between self and other.

And to see how this operates,

It's helpful to look at what I call the genealogy of a hindrance.

A couple of months ago,

I was thinking about hindrances because there's so many different qualities that come into them.

And there's different states.

And some qualities are more important than others.

And some are related to others.

And some seem very distant.

And I was trying to figure out some way to put them all together,

To see how they operate together.

And what I began to think about was a family tree.

So if you think about the Old Testament,

When it talks about these people begat these children,

And these children begat these,

And these begat.

Well,

We can go way,

Way,

Way back and look at who is the great,

Great,

Great grandfather and grandmother,

The goddess of all our disturbances,

The primal source of all hindrances.

What is the primal source of all hindrances?

Right there at the center.

I'll give you a hint.

In Pali,

It sounds like a trumpet flourish.

Ta-na.

Ta-na.

Ta-na.

Ta-na is a Pali word that literally means thirst.

But it's usually translated as craving.

And ta-na can be like blaring grass.

That's why it's translated as craving.

But it can also be as subtle as a disturbance in the forest.

You're sitting there,

And there's just a little bit of tightness,

A little bit of disturbance in your equanimity.

So they run the whole gamut.

Ta-na itself,

And I tend to use the word ta-na because it doesn't really have a good full English equivalent.

Ta-na is a pre-verbal,

Pre-conceptual biological reflex.

You're driving down the highway,

And somebody swerves in front of you.

Your hand's tight on the steering wheel.

That's ta-na.

That's a reflex.

Somebody very interesting or attractive walks by,

And you feel your attention just going that little bit of focusing.

That's ta-na.

You're sitting with your hands in front of you.

You're sitting there meditating,

And there's this jingle going on in the back of your mind.

You don't even notice it.

And then it comes forward,

And you start to get frustrated with it.

That frustration is ta-na.

Not the jingle itself,

But the tightening that happens around it.

Well,

Ta-na,

I think,

Has evolutionary origins.

I will say that for some other time.

I'm afraid I'm going to run out of time here.

So ta-na is where it all starts.

If we relax the ta-na,

You're sitting there,

And that's what you're doing.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax.

When you relax,

And it's relaxing that tension.

If we don't,

Then ta-na begets two children.

And who are the two children?

Craving for existence and craving for knowledge.

Nope,

It's before that.

It's the one we all miss.

Self and other.

Self and other.

So really,

Our root experience in life is that there's just this flow of phenomena that's going through our energy field.

But then what happens with ta-na,

When that tightness comes in,

If it's not relaxed,

Then the world begins to split into this is me,

This is not me.

This is mine,

This is not mine.

This is who I am,

This is not who I am.

There begins to be a self who's experiencing something that is a problem or something that you want.

So as the hindrance comes up,

A sense of self grows in right behind it.

And the Buddha referred to this a lot.

Those of you who have spent any time with suttas,

He talks about this is me,

Or this is not me,

This is not mine,

This is not who I am.

And I think that that was actually,

Originally,

Was a meditative tool.

So if you're sitting there and there's this hindrance coming in and you have a hard time getting a hold of them,

You don't know what's going on,

You can ask yourself these simple questions.

You're looking at the hindrance,

Is this me?

Is this mine?

Is this who I am?

Because there's a tendency to kind of identify and push away,

But to just actually see objectively what's going on.

Dojin,

The Zen poet,

Was he a Zen master?

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's what I thought.

I didn't want to give him more credit then.

And he has this famous quartet that you've probably heard,

To study the way is to study the self.

To study the self is to lose the self.

So when you really look for the self,

It starts to disappear.

To study the way is to study the self.

To study the self is to lose the self.

To lose the self is to be enlightened by all things,

By all phenomena.

To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between self and other.

And we could add a fifth line if we wanted to remove the barrier between self and other is to remove all disturbance in this flow of life.

So here's a little exercise for you.

Where does your sense of self reside in your body?

Where does your sense of self reside in your body?

For example,

When you're looking at your body,

Where is up and where is down?

So like your feet are probably down there.

So wherever the self has a center,

It's looking down at it.

The top of your head is probably up.

So your stomach is down there.

So just take a moment.

Just see if you can see where the nexus,

Where the center of your sense of self seems to reside in your body.

It's subtle.

What do you notice?

What does it tend to reside?

Heart?

Other people?

Behind your eyes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The question is,

Do you look down to see your heart?

And there are many cultures,

The Indian cultures,

Egyptians,

Where that tends to reside here.

In the West,

Where we're much more mental,

It tends to reside somewhere back in here,

Behind the eyes.

And it's from here where we look out of the world.

Sense of self is right behind our vision.

We listen.

We listen.

So can you sense that place in there?

And if you look at it gently,

What's right in the middle of it is a little bit of a tension.

Can you feel a little bit of tightness in there?

And if you can't,

Don't worry about it.

It's very subtle.

But if you can sense that tension,

See if you can soften it.

Just let it relax.

And what happens?

Shifts into the whole body.

Shifts into the whole body?

What else?

Expands.

Expands.

Sense of self starts to fade a little bit.

Yeah,

For sure.

Yeah.

Sometimes it gets a little spacey.

Sometimes it expands.

Sometimes it spreads out.

If there is no sense of self,

There are no hindrances.

There's just a flow of phenomena.

So when hindrances come up,

You can focus on the hindrance and try to work with that.

But you can also look and see if there's some tension that's creating the sense of self and see if you can allow that to soften.

Because they really,

Really come up together.

And if this seems a little mysterious,

If you don't actually see it,

Don't worry about it.

It will come.

As awareness gets stronger,

It will arise.

So,

Tanah begets self and other.

And if we relax that,

Then everything dissipates.

If we don't relax it,

Then self and other,

That's really other,

Has three children.

OK?

The next generation,

There are three kids.

And you want to guess their names?

That's right,

Yeah,

The three poisons,

Greed,

Hatred,

Delusion,

Liking,

Disliking,

Ignorance.

It's a triplet to hear about a lot in Buddhism,

Right?

And the labels I like for them is,

I really like the poly label.

It's a very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very things.

Dosa is the pushing away and it goes everything from wanting to pound somebody on the head to grumpiness.

You know,

And everything in between.

And moa is just confusion.

And it includes confusion because you're deluded.

It includes delusion because somebody gave you some bad information.

You know,

It runs its whole range.

But the real reason that I like Loba,

Dosa,

And Moa is that they sound a lot to me like Larry,

Curly,

And Moe.

So I think that's the derivation of the three stooges.

And if you think of them,

I mean,

They cause lots of mischief.

They get into trouble.

They suffer.

But they're really basically innocent at heart.

And Loba,

Dosa,

And Moa are really innocent at heart.

They get bad press.

Like I said,

They're called the three poisons sometimes.

But they're just,

You know,

They're like the drunk.

So,

Ta-da,

Self and others,

The three stooges.

And if they soften,

Then they're fine.

If not,

The next generation,

Then they get five children.

Okay,

So this is your test of Buddhist trivia.

So who are the five?

Yeah,

You're on to it.

So five classical hindrances.

Okay.

So let's just name them.

Aversion,

Hatred,

And aversion.

They're actually.

.

.

Restlessness.

Restlessness,

Aversion.

I wasn't hearing all the ones.

Doubt.

Doubt.

Do we get all five of them?

So there is the restlessness.

Oh,

We missed my favorite.

Sloth and torpor.

Sloth and torpor.

Yeah,

So restlessness is like too much energy.

Sloth and torpor is too little.

And then there's liking wanting,

Disliking aversion,

And then doubt.

So sloth and torpor.

Torpor is this sort of sleepy quality of mind that's sort of groggy.

So sometimes you're sitting there and the mind just won't settle down.

It's jumpy.

That's restlessness.

And sometimes it's just dull.

That's torpor.

And sloth is that place that says,

I ought to six-hour that.

I'll do that in a minute.

So as torpor comes up,

Our motivation tends to drain.

It's like,

Ah,

Later.

OK.

So tana,

Self and other,

The three stooges,

The five classical hindrances,

Restlessness,

Sloth and torpor,

Greed,

Aversion,

And doubt.

And if we six-hour those,

Then they dissipate.

And if we don't,

Then they go forth and they multiply.

They sprout in infinite variety.

They populate the planet.

So what I would,

Oh my goodness,

What I was going to do now,

Maybe we should save it.

Well,

I'll put it up here.

What I wanted to do now was to go back to this,

To a sutta,

Shift gears a little bit,

And go through this list of 11 very specific hindrances that Buddha mentions and do some brainstorming on those.

But I had sort of promised myself,

Actually to you,

That I wasn't going to talk for more than an hour.

And we're coming up on an hour right now.

So go for it.

Go for it.

OK.

OK.

So if you get bored,

It's your fault.

So upakalesa sutta.

The upakalesa has been translated as obscurations,

As imperfections,

As defilements,

Mental impurities.

Basically,

It just means hindrance.

And the setting of it,

I'm not going to read the whole sutta to you.

The first six verses in it deal with the schism in Kosambi.

This was in the eighth and ninth year of the Buddhist ministry after his enlightenment.

There was the city of Kosambi.

King Udina didn't like the Buddha.

And there was a sangha that was just outside the city in Gushitas Park.

And a schism developed in Kosambi,

In Gushitas Park,

In this sangha of monks.

And I won't tell you the whole fascinating story.

But basically what the split was,

Was that when you used the latrine,

You were supposed to get a gourd with a little bit of water and then wash your hands afterwards and then empty out the remainder of the water.

Because if you left water in a gourd and that climate bugs would form and you might have to kill or something would happen,

So you're supposed to dump it out.

Well,

The story was that there was a monk who didn't dump the water out.

And he was called out that he had broken a precept.

And then what the schism was about was whether this was a major infraction or a minor infraction.

And it went on and on and on.

Behind it all,

There were those monks who believed that if you just follow the rules,

You do fine.

And then those monks who really believed it was more about insight.

And so that's what the fight was about.

So in the ninth year of his ministry,

The Buddha went to Kusambi,

He went to Gushita's park to see if he could help resolve this schism that had developed.

And the short of it was that he couldn't.

They were too resistant.

So in verse seven of the Upakalesa Sutta,

He leaves Kusambi and he eventually ends up in the Eastern Bamboo Park where he meets his cousin Aniruddha.

And Aniruddha is living with two other monks and they just get along really,

Really well.

And fresh from this brouhaha in Gushita's park,

The Buddha is very interested in how it is that they live together so well.

And Aniruddha,

Who is his first cousin by the way,

Did I mention that?

Aniruddha says they are kind to one another.

Each places the other needs before his own.

That's an interesting one to think about,

What it's like,

Even with your very close relationships of always putting their needs ahead of your own.

They put others' needs before their own,

They look out for each other,

They share their chores and so forth.

They are,

Quote,

Different in body but one in mind,

Blending like milk and water and viewing each other with kindly eyes.

They play well together and they meditate together.

So the Buddha picks up on this reference to meditation and in verse 15 he says,

Good,

Good,

Aniruddha,

Have you attained any superhuman states,

A distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones,

A comfortable abiding?

Aniruddha responds,

Venerable sir,

As we abide here diligent,

Ardent and resolute we perceive both light and vision of form.

Soon afterwards the light and vision of form disappear,

But we have not discovered the cause for that.

The language is pretty thick here,

Right?

So superhuman states,

What is that referring to?

Jhana.

When I'm looking at these suttas I tend to get five or six different translations of them because a lot of them are very different and put them out together.

Because superhuman actually just means above normal and it didn't mean Batman and Superman in Pali.

So we get these connotations.

Comfortable,

Abiding?

What is Jhana?

Yeah,

So what's the quality there?

Comfort,

Ease.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's really equanimity.

So Aniruddha replies that they perceive light and vision of form.

So light,

What does that mean?

Jhana?

No,

No.

Nirmut?

No,

It's actually a lot simpler.

You ever sit and you just feel a little luminous?

Light,

You know,

Inspired?

And vision of form,

This is an extra credit one.

You go straight to the head of the enlightenment line.

If you get this one,

Vision of form.

Vision of form,

What does that refer to?

Medical imagery?

No,

Close.

Mindfulness.

It's actually so whatever comes up inside,

They're able to see it and stay with it.

Seeing nature when it is.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Which is the essence of mindfulness.

So in other words,

What's being said there is that Aniruddha says,

You know,

We start off meditating well,

The mind,

Heart become light and luminous,

Our attention stays on the object of meditation very comfortably,

And then it all collapses and we don't know why.

None of you know that probably.

So it's a place we all know well.

You're sitting there meditating,

Everything's great,

And then suddenly it just all goes down the drain.

And you don't see it coming,

It's gone.

What happened?

So Buddha says,

You should discover the cause for that,

Aniruddha.

And then he goes on sharing some of his personal history.

Before my enlightenment,

When I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisatta,

I too perceived radiance,

Light,

Uplifted quality,

And the object of meditation.

Soon afterwards,

The lightness and the mindfulness disappeared.

And I thought,

What is the cause and condition,

Why the radiance and mindfulness have disappeared?

Cause and condition,

You know,

Is a key phrase there.

What is the cause and condition,

Why they disappeared?

And I considered thus,

Doubt arose in me.

And because of doubt,

My collectiveness fell away.

When my collectiveness fell away,

The radiance and the mindfulness disappeared.

So I shall act so that doubt will not arise in me again.

Do you follow this?

So as I was saying earlier,

It's when a hindrance hijacked our attention,

The first thing we do is we six-R.

And sometimes after six-R,

A number of times it fades.

But sometimes it just doesn't.

It comes back in strength.

And he says,

You ought to ask why that's persisting.

And to do so,

You just ask this very simple question.

What's going on?

Why is this happening?

And it's not a question that you then try to analyze intellectually,

But it's just giving some instructions to the mind.

You know,

The mind actually tries very hard to be compliant.

It gets a lot of bad press,

But it really tries to do what it's told.

We just give it mixed instructions lots of times.

But so you're just asking us,

So what's going on here that this,

That these hindrances are persisting?

And then you release all that and let the mind just look a little more deeply in.

And it may show up right away or it may take a while.

But you're just directing the awareness to start seeing what's going on.

And what he's saying here is that the Buddha says back in the good old,

Back in the old days when,

Before I was awakened,

Doubt was one of the problems I came across.

Doubt is an interesting one.

Sometimes you can be sitting there and you're meditating,

And things are going great,

And just out of nowhere you think,

Hmm,

I wonder if I'm doing this right.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself.

So doubt can just actually come in straight.

It's just all by itself.

But oftentimes doubt will come in as writing on another hindrance.

So you're sitting there and you get restless.

And you're sick so out of the restlessness and it won't go away,

And you begin to get discouraged,

And then you begin to doubt.

So the hindrances like to run around in gangs.

They like to team up together.

We call them hindrance attacks.

So here you have restlessness,

And then you have doubt as a response to the restlessness.

So it's an unwholesome state that has an unwholesome response to it.

We call it a hindrance attack.

So in this case,

Let's say there's restlessness,

And then you can't figure out what that is,

But then you begin to notice that there's some doubt coming up.

You've lost your confidence.

You're not sure what's going on.

Well,

If you see that,

Then you just let the restlessness run its course,

And you look at the doubt,

And you six-hour that.

See if there's any tension in it.

Recognize,

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

And as the tension drains out of the doubt,

Then the whole thing will fade if that's what's going on.

Okay.

So verse 17 is exactly the same as verse 16.

It's like exactly the same words except rather than a doubt.

It speaks about inattention.

And so it goes on.

There's 11 of these in general where it's the exact same formula,

But there's a different hindrance that shows up in each other.

So I thought what would be fun to do,

As I mentioned earlier,

Is let's just go through.

.

.

I won't read the verses over and over again,

But let's go through each of these qualities.

And just to be clear about it,

What are some other synonyms for doubt?

Confusion.

Confusion,

Yeah.

Skepticism.

Discouragement.

Pardon?

Discouragement.

Discouragement.

And if doubt is primary,

You can six-hour it,

But what's something else you can do with doubt?

What's the question?

What is another thing other than six-hour it?

What is something that you can do to help soften a doubt?

You can look at your past experience and successes to build faith.

Yeah,

Anything that will build faith.

You can laugh at it.

You can laugh at it.

You can reflect on your motivation to come into the practice in the first place.

You take more interest in the object of meditation.

In other words,

A doubt can suck your energy off,

But you just come back to the practice.

So,

Second one in verse 17,

Inattention.

What does inattention look like when it comes up in meditation?

Pardon?

Huh?

Sorry,

I was just.

.

.

I was being silly.

That's a good example.

So,

Inattention is like when it's.

.

.

What it really is,

Is when you get more interested in something other than the meditation.

So,

I spent two days in a retreat once designing a desk lamp.

And every time I thought,

Okay,

I'll just finish this up,

Then I'll go back to the meditation.

So,

I'd finish it up,

And I'd go back to the meditation.

And then it would pop into my mind that there was a problem with the design,

So I'd start over again.

It went on like that for two days.

I went and I confessed my difficulty to Jack Kornfield.

He laughed.

He said he used to design meditation centers.

So,

It's just that place where you find yourself,

You know,

Hooked into something that's not the practice.

That's all it really means.

And so,

What can you do with that?

Just bring more attention back to the practice,

Is what I want.

Just recognize that.

Eighteen.

Sloth and torpor.

Sleepiness,

Dullness,

Lack of motivation.

And what can you do with sloth and torpor?

What about.

.

.

Coffee?

Coffee.

Bring a little energy into it.

Yeah,

Bring a little joy,

A little energy.

Do walking meditation.

Stand up,

Open your eyes.

You know,

A really interesting thing with sloth and torpor is you can do your walking meditation backwards.

I'll guarantee sloth and torpor will disappear very quickly.

There was a Zen Dharma teacher that I was talking to two years ago.

And he was talking about doing a retreat up in this cabin in the backwoods in Maine.

And it was the middle of winter and the snow was deep.

And he was in this cabin and he was just getting more and more torpor-ish.

Sleepier and sleepier.

And then,

Outside the cabin,

In the snow,

We hear crunch,

Crunch,

Crunch.

And there was no more torpor.

So interest really will energize.

Curiosity.

What's going on?

You can even.

.

.

Inside torpor there is tension.

Which seems a little counterintuitive because it seemed so lugubrious.

But there's actually tension in there.

And if that's relaxed,

The torpor actually turns more into like a mellowness.

So it's hard to see,

But sometimes you can just have that curiosity to see what is it that you are actually experiencing that seems like this drifty quality of mind.

You see what the sensations are.

And if you can see any tension,

Then you can relax it.

And would the tension be about something or would it just be a pure state of tension?

Well,

It would have had a cause and condition,

But I will confess that what I've done and relaxed it,

I think I've been happy enough to see it go,

That that was sufficient.

It's like,

Oh,

It's gone.

I was depressed for the first 40 years of my life.

So when stuff comes up that has that depressive quality that doesn't trigger it anymore,

I mean,

But it touches that stuff,

And I'm just sort of glad that when it goes without being pushed away,

It just sort of evaporates on its own.

I don't question the blessing,

Although you can certainly do that.

Verse 19,

Fear.

A common fear that can come up is when the mind begins to learn that it's actually not as much in control as it thought.

And at first that can be exhilarating,

And then I think this is in Buddha's map.

I was talking about,

So I was depressed for the first 40 years of my life.

And it was a lot of real effort and struggle that actually finally broke the depression.

And so then when I was meditating,

Years later,

I would get down to the root of this part of me that's always struggling.

It just seems to be part of my fabric.

And I could see the root,

And I could see it begin to relax,

And I began to freak out.

I mean,

The thought that came to me was,

Well,

I still know how to brush my teeth if I'm not struggling.

Sometimes you'll hit things that go so much to the core of your identity,

And you may not like them,

But there's so much built around them that as they soften,

It can trigger that fear.

And there can be fear that comes from all kinds of other things.

So what are some of the things that you can do with fear,

Along with six-R-ing?

Smile.

Smile.

Yeah.

And see what happens.

What else?

Relax.

Relax.

You see it's there for you.

So,

I mean,

The idea with fear is that,

You know,

If I'm tenser,

I'll be safer.

But when you're meditating,

You know,

That clearly is just a left of,

You know,

Vestigial biological response.

It's not.

It's so relaxed.

What else?

Those are good.

Just simply observe it without needing to do anything about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something that applies to almost all of these.

If you can see the actual sensations.

So fear,

Like all of these,

Will be this whole big package deal.

But when you look at it,

There are different sensations and stuff that actually make it up.

And it's not analyzing it,

Trying to intellectually pull it apart.

But just say,

Oh,

So where is it in my body?

Is it here?

Is it here?

I'm really curious about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Curiosity is great.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Because fear tends to shut the mind down and curiosity by its nature is this kind of opening.

Yeah,

What is this?

I always think of,

Was it Max in Maurice Stendak's Where the Wild Things Are?

Stare into all their yellow eyes without blinking once.

Sometimes with the fears you can actually do that.

Just call their bluff.

Particularly if they're old ones that you've been fighting and you realize that nothing's going to happen.

It's like,

Okay,

Whatever.

Do your darnest.

Because with a fear there's something that's pushing back.

There's nothing pushing back.

Okay.

Verse 20.

Alation.

You know what he's talking about by alation?

It really means too much energy.

Mania.

Yeah,

It's a little mania.

It's actually,

Oftentimes it's kind of a happiness that kind of wants to get involved and do something.

So there can be a happiness that comes up that you just enjoy.

Oh,

I've got to do this and I've got to do that.

That's where the mania comes in.

So what do you do with elation?

With excitement,

With too much energy?

Six R.

What else?

Look for the tension underneath it.

Look for the tension underneath it.

Yeah,

So there will be,

And it will be disguised in all these bright,

Playful colors.

There will be,

At the core of it,

There will be a tension.

Pardon?

Positive tranquility.

Tranquility.

So,

Too much energy,

Tranquility,

Samadhi,

Collectedness,

Peacefulness,

Actually counterbalances it.

Maybe we can just bring a little peacefulness in,

A little tranquility.

I'm going to skip out,

That was number 22 is called excess of energy.

Which sounds like elation,

But it's a little bit different.

What he's actually talking about that is excessive effort.

That's like pushing too hard.

Any of you ever push too hard?

Anybody here who's never pushed too hard?

If you have,

If you can figure out how to bottle that,

You can probably sell a lot of them.

And so if you're pushing too hard,

Aside from six R-ing,

What's one thing you can do with that?

Lie in meditation.

Lie in meditation.

Dispassion is another one of just saying,

Actually it doesn't make any difference.

And as I was talking here,

Talking to someone,

The way I come to dispassion has been by trying everything else but.

And then I sort of run out of options.

And to think that,

Okay,

I can just back off it.

It's like I figure out every other path I can go down doesn't work.

And backing off it,

I'm not sure it'll work or not,

But that's better than all these that I'm sure are wrong.

And it's really quite literally true because there have been times when I've just really wanted to get to the next place.

And so I try to talk myself out of it as a way of getting myself into it,

Which doesn't work.

And it's not until I say,

Well,

I guess maybe I'm never going to get there.

And so what the heck?

Let's just see what's going on.

We'll just see what's here.

So surrender.

Yeah,

That's a kind of surrender.

Inertia.

Inertia.

Staleness.

Is that different than the sons and daughters?

It's a little bit different.

It's,

You know,

They're probably first cousins.

The staleness.

That's what I told you to go for a walk.

So what happens is you can be practicing and,

You know,

And things are working.

And then it just,

It starts to go flat,

You know,

And you can't put your finger on anything.

And sometimes what you need to do is just to break up the routine a little bit.

You know,

To do something different,

To go for a walk,

You know,

Maybe take a little bit of time away from it,

But something just to break up that staleness,

Which is different than sloth and torpor.

Sloth and torpor,

You just tend to fall asleep.

This is something that's like,

Feels like,

Yeah,

It feels like inertia.

Okay,

And closely related to that is a deficiency of energy,

Which is the way Bhikkhu Bodhi translated it,

But it's really lack of interest.

So the dispassion,

Whatever comes up is okay.

Still has some interest and curiosity.

You don't care what comes up,

But you're interested to see,

And that can slide over into,

Well,

I just don't care.

And then the whole thing goes flat.

So what are some of the things you can do with that?

Balance the energy?

Try and invoke curiosity?

Yeah,

A little bit of curiosity.

We're getting down towards the end here.

Longing.

So these are 11 that the Buddha mentions,

And some of them clearly are much closely related to other ones.

Longing is just a desire,

But it's kind of,

It's sort of packaged in velvet.

You know,

It's a soft,

Oh,

Oh.

Oh,

Gosh,

I wish I could have that vacation.

And there's something that can be very important with this is to,

Is just not keep your awareness on whatever the object of that longing is,

Because it'll tend to get you all daydreaming about,

Oh,

I want this vacation,

And you get into that.

It's like really coming back.

Here's a funny phrase that shows up.

Perception of diversity.

And anyone want to take a shot at that?

If nobody wants to,

I don't blame you.

What it really is,

Is perception of change,

And actually wanting change.

So you'll see it sometimes in yogis that they want to go on to the next practice,

And I want to do something else,

And can I add this to this?

I want to do all this stuff rather than just letting yourself settle down.

And in the commentaries,

It says,

While I was attending to a single type of form,

Longing arose,

Thinking I will attend to different kinds of forms.

Sometimes I directed my attention towards the heavenly world,

Sometimes toward the human world,

As I attended to different kinds of form,

Perception of diversity arose.

So it's that mind that's just kind of wandering around,

Well,

What about this?

I have this thought,

And there's this.

It's kind of scatteredness.

It's a scatteredness without necessarily the jitteriness that you picture with restlessness.

And so it can be a little subtler to notice that,

Because it's just kind of gently going here and there.

But it is also a form of greed.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Longing,

It's a wanting.

But it's just so gently packaged.

It looks very generous,

But it's really greedy underneath.

You would just feel so much better if you just think about this vacation.

It's that sort of thing.

The last one,

Excessive meditation on forms.

Excessive meditation on forms.

Anybody want to guess what that really is?

Too much seriousness.

It's just really pushing too hard.

Ugh,

I've got to get there.

So what do you do when you're over serious?

Smile.

Smile.

Relax.

It'll open up when it comes along.

You can't push the river.

And as I was saying,

At 11,

What we're really doing is cultivating the conditions that allow wholesome states to arise.

It's not grasping for them.

It's not pushing for them.

It's relaxing them to it.

Okay,

So.

.

.

That's enough sutta.

Questions,

Comments?

Anybody have a favorite hindrance they want to share?

One of my thoughts,

And I just had too much stuff I wanted to do,

But we could have done a show and tell.

Somebody come up and say,

Well,

This is my favorite hindrance,

So a hindrance that likes me the most.

When we're relaxing,

I find myself looking for a sensation in the body that represents tension.

And I guess I'm not clear on whether or not that's really what we should be doing.

Yeah,

You.

.

.

It's an invitation to kind of see if there's any tension there.

And it helps to.

.

.

Because what you're actually doing is telling the mind it's okay to pay attention to see if it's there.

Where it goes overboard is where you become Sherlock Holmes,

Kind of plowing around trying to find something.

That's actually too much effort.

So what you do with the relax is you just look and see if there's some tension.

And if it shows up,

Or some tightness or some thickness,

And if it shows up,

Then you can relax that.

And if you don't notice anything,

Then it's fine.

And if there's a subtle stuff that you're not noticing in due time,

It will come to the surface.

You don't have to worry about it.

It'll show up.

This practice is actually self-correcting.

So if you miss something,

Remember these all have Asperger's syndrome.

They will just keep coming back until you've got it.

So it's completely benign.

It was important for me tonight to kind of expose it.

Is what?

It was important for me tonight to kind of expose it.

Yes.

Well,

I like it because they're always talking about the five ones.

And these,

You get in all these subtle variations,

And you begin to get it.

Yeah,

Okay.

They were people back then,

Too.

They always sound so clinical when you just.

.

.

But these are kind of messy.

It's kind of hard to put your finger on them.

Has anybody actually written up a review of this as approachable as your exposition of it tonight?

Like,

That we could get that's readable?

I know Banti has.

.

.

I think there's.

.

.

Do you know if they've got the Upakalesa Sutta?

No.

They didn't move in Dharma.

Yeah,

I think Banti has some talks on this that have been put out there.

I would bet that Shinzen Young would also have some pretty concise and precise material.

Yeah.

It'd be fun to play around with.

You kind of went into great detail on the 11.

Could you just read the list?

Yeah,

Just the tops.

Doubt,

Inattention,

Sloth and torpor,

Fear,

Elation or excitement,

Too much energy,

Inertia,

Inaction,

Stale-ness,

Excessive energy or excessive effort,

Deficiency of energy or weak effort,

A longing,

Perception of diversity or perception of change.

I'm not really concerned with that.

Excessive meditation on form,

Which is just really too much seriousness.

I have to say they all sound amazingly familiar.

Aren't they,

Though?

I will read you one more passage.

Then we'll close.

I got this from John Travis,

Who got it from a student.

It's self-explanatory,

So I'll just read it.

My husband and I spent last summer at my family's cabin at Grand Lake Colorado,

At the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.

In town one day,

I picked up a pamphlet on living in bear country.

The suggestions for what to do if you meet a bear sounded a lot like meditation instructions.

Substituting thought for bear,

Here are some helpful hints from the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Colorado has been home to thoughts since their earliest ancestors evolved in North America.

Today,

Increasing numbers of people routinely live and play in thought country.

Learning about thoughts and being aware of their habits will help you fully appreciate these unique animals and the habitats in which they live.

What to do if you meet a thought.

There are no definite rules about what to do if you meet a thought.

Thought attacks are rare compared to the number of close encounters.

However,

If you do meet a thought before it has time to leave an area,

Here are some suggestions.

Remember,

Every situation is different with respect to the thought,

The terrain,

The people,

And their activity.

Stay calm.

See a thought and it hasn't seen you,

Calmly leave the area.

Stop.

Back away slowly while facing the thought.

Give the thought plenty of room to escape,

While thoughts rarely attack people unless they feel threatened or provoked.

Speak softly.

This may reassure the thought that no harm is meant to it.

If a thought stands upright or moves closer,

It may be trying to detect smells in the air.

It isn't a sign of aggression.

Once a thought identifies you,

It may leave the area or try to intimidate you by charging within a few feet before it withdraws.

Don't run or make any sudden movements.

Running is likely to prompt the thought to chase you.

You cannot outrun a thought.

If you have a potentially life-threatening situation with a thought or an injury occurs,

Please contact the Division of Wildlife Monday through Friday,

Monday,

8 to 5 p.

M.

Share this with a friend or neighbor.

What's most important about all this is to just be aware of the attitude in the mind.

Whatever is coming up,

Be aware of the attitude in the mind.

If the attitude is unwelcoming,

Then you can recognize it.

Release,

Relax,

Smile.

Because when we can greet a gnarly,

Smelly hindrance with the same opening welcome that you might greet a close friend with,

Then we're free.

Then we're truly free.

Not easy,

But it's really that simple.

So let's spend a few moments sharing the merit of bodhicitta.

There is a way in which hindrances can make us feel very alone,

But they should really just make us feel so connected with everybody else that you're meditating with and with everybody else on the planet.

It's just part of the human condition.

And understanding this and understanding our deep connection with each other and knowing that this welcome opening attitude towards whatever arises is so helpful.

Just send some of that out.

May all people,

May all beings be comfortable with their experience.

May all beings be welcoming of their essence.

May all beings know the stillness beyond the distortions.

May all beings know that sweet,

Quiet place of freedom.

May all beings know ease.

May it be so.

Thank you.

Reviews

Great - lovely guy.

Which book are you reading from?
Thank you, I learnt alot. May you be blessed.

Nothing comes into our mind/ heart without us inviting it in in some form. Hindrances are invitations to investigate more closely at our distortions. Doug does a beautiful job showing the chain of hindrances in our meditation practice.
Tenah begets self & other if not resolved then begets the 3 roots: loba, dosa, moha if not resolved then begets the 5hindrances:
Sensory desire, Ill will, sloth & torpor, restlessness & worry, and doubt
If not resolved then they multiply the planet
He goes into the Upakkilesa Sutta which are some subtle variations of hindrances and their antidotes taught from the Buddha.
Hindrances connect us and are part of the human condition. Keep a welcoming attitude and remain curious. Thank you!
Excellent talk 🙏🏼💚

Thank you. Grateful for this talk, lucid explanations and stories. Sending good wishes.

Interesting and helpful. Thank you 🙏🦋