The Hindrances – Sloth and Torpor

This is a talk given by Lloyd to the Insight Community of Denver, Colorado on one of the hindrances to meditation; sloth and torpor. In the Buddhist tradition, the five hindrances are identified as mental factors that hinder progress in meditation and in our daily lives.

Transcript

Okay,

So I want to spend some time now reflecting together on the Buddhist teachings on this particular hindrance,

This particular obstacle to concentration.

Again,

Usually classically translated as sloth and torpor or dullness or something along those lines.

And to reflect back again on the metaphor that the Buddha used for these teachings altogether and what Ersinli I guess is,

What he did was to liken each of these states of mind to a basin of water or a pool in a forest that in one way or another is disturbed.

So anger he described as this otherwise clear calm pool as boiling and kind of stirred up so that it's not possible to see clearly to the bottom.

Art and desire,

Unrequited desire he described as if there were brightly colored dyes being poured into the water to likewise make it not possible to clearly see.

Sloth and torpor he likened to the pond being overgrown with algae,

Kind of eutrophied,

You know,

Mucky.

So it's useful I think in my experience to,

These are called obstacles to concentration or obstacles to the ability to have a tranquil,

Focused,

Sustained attending mind.

But for me in my experience they also are obstacles to insight.

And the reason has to do with how the Buddha used this simile of these pools of bodies of water.

When they are untroubled,

When they are clear,

Two things become possible he said.

One is to clearly see to the bottom of the pool,

Which is to say as he often said,

The ability to see the world with eyes unclouded by fear and longing,

You know,

To be able to simply see things as they are.

But he said the other thing when you see,

When you look into a clear still pool is you see your own reflection,

You see yourself.

And so that's where the insights come from,

From the mind's ability to clearly see itself,

For you to be able to recognize how the mind is conjuring up the self at that particular point in time,

You know,

What form it's taking.

And so it's literally an exercise,

In some ways it's possible to think about mindfulness as an exercise in self-reflection.

Holding a mirror up to the mind's own mental activities,

Okay,

By using the metaphor of the pool.

But it's only possible when the pool is untroubled,

Okay.

And so the purpose of recognizing these hindrances or these obstacles when they arise is so that you can gain some insight into the ways that that state of mind is keeping you from being able to clearly see yourself,

See what's going on.

So I think what I'd like to do first here is talk a little bit about what sloth and torpor are not.

And one of the things that this state of mind is not is simple fatigue.

Early on in a week or ten day long retreat or maybe just even when you're sitting at home,

Especially on retreat,

First two or three days are usually spent with yogis on the retreat just letting go a little bit,

Stepping out of the swirl of activities and the rapid pace of daily life.

A remarkable number of us going on retreat are actually suffering chronic sleep deprivation but don't know it.

And so those first few days can be taken up a lot with just kind of catching up on your sleep.

And there's an opportunity to take a nap every afternoon after lunch.

I didn't used to be much of a napper but on retreat I really developed the art of napping to a high state.

I came to appreciate that period very much.

So this need for rest and for a calm mind and rested body in order to be able to meditate in a skillful way really,

Really needs to be respected.

And so if there is simple fatigue going on it just needs to be addressed and responded to in a positive way.

Another thing that can happen if you're doing this practice whether again in daily life or here or on retreat is that for the most part our pace and the intensity of our daily activities is such that the mind spends very little time just relaxed,

Sort of not doing.

And so when you give yourself the gift of not doing,

Of just sitting calmly and being with the mind whatever it's doing the mind oftentimes just out of habit says it must be time to fall asleep.

And so it does so just because that's what the mind does when oftentimes there's no activity going on.

None of these things really quite fall into the category of sloth and torpor as an obstacle to concentration and insight.

Something else that sloth and torpor is not and sometimes it can get confused with this a little bit is deep samadhi.

So the mind is capable when it's not troubled by any of these things of mind of careful,

Deep,

Calm,

Sustained attention.

It's possible for the mind to become very still with no activity going on to speak of at all.

It's become very still and very quiet.

And yet what's still going on is a very high level of awareness,

Of activity.

In this case the awareness of inactivity in the mind that the mind is in a deep state of peace.

And so sometimes if someone's been sitting for a while and they find themselves in this really deep,

Calm space,

You know,

Shamanata they will say,

Oh gosh,

You know,

I must be zoning out because nothing's going on and I'm not thinking about my terrible childhood or whatever.

When in fact the mind is just really calm and clear and peaceful.

And the way you can distinguish between that and sloth and torpor is that with sloth and torpor there is no activity going on but there is absolutely no awareness.

You're not even aware of the fact that the mind is calm because the mind is actually kind of dead.

It's kind of like the mind's been shot up with novocaine or something,

You know,

It's kind of numb.

So it's really kind of important to distinguish between those two.

I've got 76 days left on a 30 year hitch as a professor at the University of Colorado.

And when I tell people I'm retiring at the end of the spring term,

The question I most frequently ask is what are you going to do?

And I used to gin up some thoughts about what I might do is really take my conservation photography the next step up or volunteer at a park or something like that.

But more truthfully and more to the point these days when someone asks me that question,

What I do is to say,

Well,

You know,

Ever since I entered graduate school about 40 years ago,

I've been doing intensely,

You know,

40,

50,

60 hours a week,

You know,

Finishing work on my degrees and then leaping into assistant professorship and just going at it and teaching and research and service and hammering tongs for the last 30 years,

Right?

And I really know how to do and what I want to experiment with now a little bit is less doing and more being,

You know,

Just inquiring to what it feels like to live life day to day and see what comes out.

You know,

I think people are worried that I'm going to bench out and,

You know,

Stay at home,

You know,

And my sweats in a state of sloth and torpor.

So they're a little anxious,

You know,

And this,

You know,

What you're going to do,

What you're going to do.

And on the flip side,

That can also happen when you go on retreat and the whole idea is,

You know,

Nowhere to go,

Nothing to do,

No one to be,

Just be there and examine what's going on.

But it turns out to be remarkably difficult.

And so when people come for interviews on retreat,

You know,

The question they frequently have,

Especially at the beginning,

Is what should I do?

What should I be doing?

You know,

It's like bringing that same,

You know,

Kind of fairly hyperactive mind state to bear on the process of calming the mind down.

It's a little bit self-defeating,

Actually.

And so,

So a lot of the kind of self-learning that needs to go on early on in retreat is just that,

You know,

That sure,

There's different techniques that are taught in terms of calming the mind and insight practices and stuff,

But mostly it's about learning how to do less doing and more just being.

So here are some of the characteristics of the state of mind of South and Harper.

A lack of awareness of what's going on.

Just sort of in the dark,

Clueless,

No real sense of what's happening,

No insights at all.

A feeling of innervation,

Complete lack of energy,

As if you can barely keep the body in an upright position.

You know,

Just kind of zip-o,

You know.

Also,

There's a sense of withdrawal or contraction from whatever's going on,

As if you want to go into a state of hibernation,

You know,

And just retreat from the world into some dark,

Still,

But utterly mindless place.

And I don't know,

It's been some time now,

The Kubrick film 2001,

A Space Odyssey,

You know,

And there's this,

The artificial intelligence that's running this spacecraft decides that the crew isn't really quite up to the job,

You know,

Making too many mistakes,

And so he starts killing them off.

And then one of the last remaining astronauts realizes what's going on,

So he starts disengaging the AI system.

And you can gradually hear his howl of 9,

000 is being kind of shut down,

You know,

One memory cell at a time.

Sometimes it can feel kind of like that,

You know,

When you find yourself going into sloth and turbers.

It's just like,

Sayonara,

Howl,

You know,

And not much left there.

So,

In addition to that,

There can also be a kind of a sense of resignation.

Not quite despair,

But just what's the point,

You know.

It's just going to sit there and endure what's going on,

But absolutely no inkling or even inclination or sense of intention to really kind of see what's going on.

Ajahn Chah,

The Thai forest meditation master,

You know,

When he would talk about people trying to overcome rustle so they can just sit calmly and whatnot.

And he said,

You know,

There's no particular virtue to just sitting.

Chickens do that.

He said,

The purpose of sitting or any other meditation posture is to allow for mindfulness to rise,

You know.

So,

As is the case with all of these hindrances,

All of these obstacles to concentration and to insight,

It is possible to transform them,

To take them in the state that they are presented to you and transform them from obstacles into teachers or into sources of insight.

And it's that process that I want to describe to you by way of a personal example now and then maybe we can share our own experiences or have some question and answer about that.

So,

The first retreat I went to,

Insight meditation retreat,

Was in 1975 and it was right after the people who were teaching this retreat,

Who were Joseph Goldstein and Jack Hornfield and Sharon Salzberg,

They had just returned from spending years practicing in Asia,

In Thailand and in Burma.

And so,

They were kind of fresh off the boat getting back into American culture again and they had done so much intensive retreat practice that these first retreats were set up,

You know,

Pretty much like the ones they had been doing.

So,

This is a two week silent retreat where we did sitting and walking meditation 15 hours a day.

And the silence is pretty strict except for when we were in interviews and when Dharma talks were happening or instruction.

And so,

It was a fairly intense environment and I was sitting this course with my wife,

Neither of us had ever done this practice before in any serious way.

And so,

For about the first two or three days of the retreat,

I had that same experience that I was just describing.

You know,

I just felt really tired,

Really exhausted,

So I really spent some time catching up on my sleep and taking naps and getting rested and what not.

But still in all,

And for me,

And it happens for most people on retreat,

Your energy level changes over the course of the day and certain sittings seem to be characterized by certain kinds of things happening and then other things happening.

Well,

My particular dead zone,

You know,

My kind of personal Sargasso seat,

Was the sitting right after the next sitting after lunch and maybe after you've taken your nap and what not.

And so,

I'd go in there beautifully to the hall,

I'd sit down and I was quite the macho meditator,

You know,

I was really good at getting with the program and do it,

You know,

It was kind of like spiritual boot camp.

But that sit,

That particular sit was a real killer because every day it seemed like the sloth and torpor got stronger than they had been the day before.

And I would try doing all the things they talk about,

Sitting up straight,

Taking breaths and what not.

And I knew I was adequately rested,

But the sense of exhaustion,

Of innervation,

Of just being dead in the water was really strong and it was a real downer,

You know,

It was just,

It was hurt.

And it got so difficult,

It became such a kind of a black hole in the day,

You know,

And so far as,

You know,

My ability to have any sense of what was going on,

Then,

You know,

I started bringing it up in interviews,

You know,

With the teachers.

And it was suggested to me that maybe what was going on was that there was something kind of just below the surface of consciousness that wanted to come forth,

You know,

And that maybe was worth engaging in this.

It can be suggested to people after you've been on in a few days and the mind's starting to get calm and you're coming up with something repeatedly.

It's to engage in this process called contemplative inquiry.

We've talked a lot about during the meditation practice,

Thinking and pondering is what he called it,

Right?

Which is kind of confusing because when you go on retreat,

It's all the instructions in the introductory phases,

The instructions you get are all about letting go of your thoughts and don't get caught up in the story.

However,

Later on,

You know,

Go from insight 101 to 102 or 105,

That next phase is once the mind has become clear and fresh and attentive,

Then you can turn those mental capabilities to inquiry into what's going on in the mind.

So one question to prove fruitful is what is it the mind does not want me to see?

And so I would sit,

You know,

Start to come on,

I would begin to ask myself that question.

And what happened as a result almost caused me to leave the retreat because I was eight years back from Vietnam and the year that I spent,

You know,

As a medic with the Marine Corps.

And at least once a week,

I was still getting these nightmares,

You know,

These flashbacks of what it was like to be there.

And I figured they were just going to kind of be with me,

Kind of like a war wound,

You know.

And by that time,

They were only happening at night when I was asleep.

But what started happening during that particular sit is I started having these flashbacks again while I was awake.

And they were extremely vivid.

And they were gory and bloody and horrible,

You know.

And I really thought I was losing my marbles.

I was quite concerned about my sanity,

You know,

Because I thought I had been able to keep all that stuff under wraps,

But there was no way,

You know.

And so every time I sit,

I mean,

First I used to get bummed about that particular sitting because of the sloth and torpor.

And now I was getting bummed because it was like a horror movie every time I sat.

And I was quite disturbed and really was feeling like this,

Maybe this was a very unwise practice for me to have taken up.

And I happened to have an interview when I was really in the midst of this with Sharon Salzberg,

Who is,

You know,

Kind of one of the foremost teachers of loving-kindness practice in the Western world.

And she said,

Well,

Consider what's probably going on.

You know,

We have these debates about is Buddhism a religion or is it a philosophy or?

And for me,

Those that kind of,

You know,

Dialectic discourses of it is of limited use.

For me,

When you regard something like Buddha Dharma,

You know,

Buddhism is in fact a European academic term.

It's not,

You know,

In the East they talk about Buddha Dharma.

When you look at Buddha Dharma,

It's like looking at a mini-faceted jewel.

You know,

There are different ways you can look at it and you will see different things.

So there's ritual in there and there's all kinds of things that appear to have the same trappings as the world's other major religions.

But as the Buddha taught it,

If you read carefully his discourses,

He was mostly,

At least when he's talking about how to transform mental afflictions into teachers,

You know,

He was talking about learning how to heal your own mind from affliction.

So it's more like do-it-yourself psychotherapy.

And in particular,

Vipassana or insight meditation is about that.

It's about training the mind so you can really carefully inquire into the difficulties that are arising for you.

And when the mind's calm enough to do that and not identifying with those difficulties quite so personally,

And you can see that there are more than anything else just the outflow of your own karma,

You know,

Of all the causes and conditions that have occurred in your life and have given rise to your state of mind in that particular point in time,

That as you can come to see that,

That it becomes quite free.

You've developed this vantage point.

It's like you've become your own therapist,

You know.

And for anyone who's either been a client or a practitioner,

You know,

About two-thirds of good therapists just listening,

You know,

Really mindful,

Careful,

Attentive listening,

And then reflecting back what you hear.

That's a lot of what happens,

You know,

In interviews and retreats as well.

But in this understanding that the mind has this tremendous capacity to heal itself,

If you develop sufficient ability to be able to reflect on what's going on in the mind.

And so,

The way Sharon explained it to me,

She said,

All it is is catharsis.

It's all these memories you carried in all these years that were so painful and difficult,

You couldn't stand to look at them.

It wasn't just the factual memory,

But it was the emotion that was attached to it,

You know,

And mindfully she started to be able to deconstruct them a little bit,

To disengage them and see,

You know.

And she was right,

Of course.

And as I just wrote it out day after day,

That two o'clock sitting was no longer very boring.

It was a period of intense activity.

And a little bit by a little bit,

As the intensity of the emotions began to recede,

The factual memories got more and more clear,

You know,

That became more and more vivid actually,

But not in a terrible way,

Just in a.

.

.

And it's like there was,

You know,

Like when you take a picture with a fancy camera and then the file gets compressed,

You know,

It's like the file was getting bigger and bigger,

You know.

And there were a lot of pixels in there and I was able to see much more clearly than I could before.

What happens when you're able to be with your own suffering in that kind of insightful way is that it begins to automatically trigger self-compassion.

And you can.

.

.

And I could look back,

You know,

On this 20-year-old kid in this horrific situation,

Right,

And see,

Well,

God,

No wonder,

You know.

And so coming out of that,

I've come to have a very different understanding about the state of mind of sloth and torpor.

You know,

It's usually described as having no energy,

Of kind of being dead in the water.

At least in my own experience,

As I looked carefully at what was going on,

That wasn't really true at all.

There was a tremendous amount of energy being expended actually.

And it was all being expended in the form of internal conflict.

There were these memories that really,

Really wanted to emerge as part of the healing process.

And then there was this very powerful resistance to releasing them because they were going to be painful and disturbing.

And so this was.

.

.

This struggle was going on below the surface,

Like a coral reef that you can't see from the surface of the water.

And then gradually,

By kind of attending to it and directing attention to it,

It broke open.

It was kind of like an infected wound or something,

You know.

And it got flushed out.

It was painful,

Right?

But I got back home after the retreat and I didn't have any more nightmares after a week.

That was interesting.

Not after two weeks,

But a month.

They went away.

I had some residual flashbacks on the second retreat I went on,

But never again was I plagued by those flashbacks in a way that I had been up until that first retreat.

And that insight and that self-healing arose.

.

.

The starting point for all that was mindful inquiry into the nature of sloth and torpor.

Turned out to be this portal or this gateway into this powerful,

Frightening,

Hugely transformative aspect of my life.

And that's why I'm here today.

No,

Literally,

After that happened,

I'm like,

Holy moly,

I am onto something here.

Because I had this really powerful experience of the mind's own healing power.

That with these kind of techniques,

It really is possible to be with whatever your afflictions happen to be in a really loving and kind and insightful way.

And that when you can do that,

It can change your life.

That is,

In fact,

Why I kept doing this practice and why I learned how to teach it and so on and so forth.

So you never know what's going to come of turning your attention to,

Or your efforts to the transformation of whichever these hindrances is before you.

To find out what's really going on and what's in there.

All of them are efforts on the part of the constructed self to keep you from seeing painful things,

Basically.

Or difficult things,

Things you don't want to look at.

And then once you find yourself in a setting where it is possible to do that,

Whether it's prolonged sitting at home and coming here or going on retreat,

Which I really strongly recommend doing whenever you feel like you're up for one.

Because it's that kind of continuous deep practice with a skilled teacher that really creates the safe environment in which that kind of transformation can occur.

So,

How about some discussion,

Some questions about anything I've said?

Especially if anything I said has resonance with it.

So if there was a fly in the wall inside of your skull,

When you were doing this inquiry,

What would it hear?

What words did you use to be a part of it?

Oh,

What answers I was wondering about,

You know,

In a brain-worn person?

Yes,

Okay.

The questions were,

What is it that I do not want to see?

What is it that the mind is trying to keep me from seeing,

Right?

And the answer turned out to be a war movie.

But that's what basically unleashed the flashbacks.

So you did not see the movie before you asked?

Oh,

No.

I knew that it was inside.

When I first came back from Vietnam,

I would have these experiences where it was like a memory was superimposed over current reality.

But I spent enough time drunk and stoned to get that under control.

And then,

So it just kind of went underground for a while and I just tried to ignore it.

And again,

Once every week for ten days,

It would crop up in the form of a nightmare that would wake me up sweating.

And then I got down to where about a once a week occurrence that those would happen.

So I knew all that stuff was in there.

Was it in there when you were nodding off after lunch?

I wasn't aware that that stuff was so close to the surface until I decided to,

You know,

Use the power of mindfulness to say,

Well,

What's going on here?

You know,

What is it that's happening?

And it was because the teachers on the retreat were able to help me frame it.

You know,

It sounds like something stuck in there,

You know,

Like there's something that the mind is working hard to keep you from discovering.

So you may want to reflect a little on what that might be.

And I didn't really know,

You know,

Until I kind of asked myself that question.

And then it was like,

You know,

Opening the floodgates.

Is that responsive?

Yeah,

I was wondering,

You know,

The words.

What is it that the mind does not want me to see?

I have a question.

Yes,

Please.

That sloth and torpor versus beat samadhi distinction.

So like,

You know those moments where you get deeper and all of a sudden you lose like time?

Yes.

And then you're done with the meditation.

You're like,

That's great.

I think I just spent the last 30 minutes of that without knowing how much pain I've been sitting here.

Like,

How do you know if that moment is a moment of beat samadhi or sloth and torpor?

Like to me,

It feels like my mind has become so calm,

It's pretty much fallen asleep from its usual state of just like all over the place.

But there's also I'm not drawn to like further inquire and I'm not drawn to like direct that samadhi anywhere,

If that's what's happening.

So I don't have like a sense to explore that characteristic.

Yeah.

There's a subtle distinction between zoning out and deep samadhi or a clear calm,

Deeply still mind.

And the distinction between them is how aware you are of what's going on in the mind on a moment by moment,

Second by second basis.

So when you're just practicing arising and passing,

You know,

One form of insight practice is just to do the arising and passing of all phenomena.

That's the one I teach at the beginning of the sittings,

You know.

So whether it's a body sensation or a sound or a thought or an emotion,

You recognize the flow as you watch it arise,

You watch it change,

You watch it go away.

What happens when you're getting into a sort of deep samadhi state or a deeper state of concentration is that these things that are just kind of going on,

It's like they begin to recede outward to the,

You know,

Kind of the horizon a little bit.

And any sounds,

Whether it's physical sounds in the world or whether it's the sounds of your own thinking,

Becomes softer and fainter as if someone's turning down the volume until you find yourself in just this sort of sea of tranquility,

Fully awake,

Fully alert,

You know.

So if a car backfired or something like that,

You'd be right there.

But so the level of awareness,

You know,

It's like Bhante Gupta Ratna talks about mindfulness meditation being one that slows down the rate of mental activity and speeds up the rate of awareness.

So the awareness is quite heightened and quite finely tuned,

But the mind is quite still.

So that's the state of samatha or tranquility,

You know,

As distinguished from just zoning out where it's like you're sitting there and then all of a sudden,

Half an hour later,

Gosh,

That was a great meditation.

Is that responsive?

Yes.

Okay,

Good.

Please.

So is that sloth and torpor,

Like in some of these practices where,

You know,

We're getting up at 3.

30 in the morning and,

You know,

And then.

.

.

I remember having done that a long time ago.

But it seems like there's a bump.

And it goes one way or another that if you don't fall asleep,

I mean,

I can totally fall asleep for three sittings in a row,

45 minutes,

You know,

Really.

But,

And you're kind of doing that and you're getting ready to go,

You know,

And it seems like there's a bump.

It either goes one way or another.

You either watch yourself fall asleep and then you miss it because you do fall asleep or you're like right there and you feel that bump and you're getting ready.

And then all of a sudden you kind of drop under it and then it kind of opens up.

So is,

And then you stay with it,

Right?

And then you're kind of there.

Is that sloth and torpor right before that happens when you're on that edge of almost falling asleep and then sometimes you go and some,

Okay.

Yep.

And one of the reasons that we kind of characterize these things,

The explanation in each of these is kind of like a natural history class,

You know,

Or like a slow,

Show on a slideshow.

This is what a great blue herring looks like.

And this is what a snow egret looks like and whatnot so that when you go out in the field,

You'll be able to recognize it when you see it.

It's kind of like that.

This is what,

You know,

Desire looks like.

This is what sloth and torpor looks like.

And so once you have some awareness of what it is that's going on,

Then when you see it arise,

It's like you said,

Oh,

Sloth and torpor and down to the count.

Or you see it arising and just being able to recognize it and name it can move you to a different place.

In other words,

You can recognize it as coming on,

But it's not so strong that you succumb to it.

You know,

That you see it for what it is and are able to sort of just sort of step to one side.

And sometimes that instead of going down that path,

You actually do find yourself in a pretty calm,

Stable state of mind.

Is that responsive?

Is that good?

Okay.

Please,

Tom.

Well,

I'm wondering if you could talk about neutral feeling and sloth and torpor because neutral feeling to me feels very much like something out.

You know what I'm talking about?

Say more what you mean when you use the term neutral feeling.

Neutral feeling.

Well,

You know,

There's a really agitated state.

There is a state of clinging.

Yes.

And then there is a state where not a lot of stuff is coming up.

You're basically just sitting there without a great deal of activity.

You're past your neuroses.

You're past all of that.

You're past the big issues and that's neutral feeling.

But for me,

Neutral feeling is so akin to boredom that I find it very difficult to be on a continual basis with neutral feeling.

Yes.

Right.

In my experience,

It's not possible to do that.

That state of mind you're describing is one that for me is kind of like being stuck in traffic.

So I just kind of put it in the park and just sit there and tell things.

So you may sit there for quite some time with your motor item and not go anywhere,

Nothing going on.

But the reason I use the simile is because you didn't plan to spend the day sitting in your car with it in neutral in the motor item.

You were originally intended to kind of go someplace and now you're not.

And just as you described,

That neutral feeling,

Nothing going on particularly,

Wonder what I'm doing here,

Does sometimes have a tendency to slide into some state of at least mild boredom.

And when I recognize that that's happened,

One of the things I've come to recognize that boredom is not a neutral state of mind.

Boredom is lack of activity plus the mild,

In my experience,

Plus the mild degree of aversion.

It's wanting something to happen,

Things exactly as they are for whatever reason is not quite good enough.

I want the light to change for this traffic jam to clear up so I can move ahead.

Well,

In the Tibetan tradition they talk about the counterparts to the hindrance.

Yes.

So the counterpart to anger is a kind of insightful wisdom.

The counterpart to attachment is love.

The counterpart to neutrality is spaciousness.

So it's akin to spaciousness,

What I'm referring to as neutral feeling.

But I keep waiting for neutral feeling to bust open into spaciousness.

And I've been waiting for years.

Yeah,

I think that,

It sounds to me like it's because what you describe as neutral feeling has just the merest hint of aversion folded in with it.

But you know,

I've been trying to work with it.

Yeah.

Okay,

What is this?

And to be with it as much as I possibly can,

Actively be with it.

Yes.

Neutral feeling.

Yes.

Nothing's happening.

Well,

From the way you describe it,

Especially the Tibetan view,

For me the difference between that neutral feeling and that sense of spaciousness is presence of self.

Which is to say that the neutral feeling that has just,

You know,

Like the way you describe it,

Whines,

Hints are overtones of chocolate and raspberry.

So to have the experience of here I am experiencing a neutral feeling is different from,

Subtly different but different from that feeling of spaciousness because in the second case there's no one there.

There may be this very,

Very subtle sense of or awareness of spaciousness,

But that there's not somebody there in the way there is when you are saying here I am experiencing the neutral feeling.

It feels to me like it's the,

And we tend to think about selfing I think in kind of binary terms,

You know,

Now you see it,

Now you don't.

Now I am constructing the self and I am not.

But in fact Buddha described it more in terms of gradations,

You know,

Of where when you are experiencing one of the hindrances,

Especially the anger,

The desire,

There may be this very powerful sense of self and entitlement and what not.

And then as you begin to let go of the fetters and what not,

You can have these mind states where these experiences alive I think where the sense of self is more subtle,

You know,

It's softer.

You don't feel like it has you by the throat anymore,

You know,

It becomes more like sort of a traveling companion,

You know,

But hasn't gone away and still exerts itself from time to time and it sounds to me when you describe neutral feeling that it's literally nothing happening,

Nothing going on.

Plus this very subtle wish that there were something going on,

You know,

As distinguished from just having absolutely no desire for things to be at all different than they are in a moment.

I think there's that quality of letting go that happens then,

You know,

And I see you nodding so I know you know what that feels like too.

It just doesn't happen as frequently as we might wish it to.

And you know that's my experience as well.

You know those times of selfless spaciousness do occur and I think it would be really neat if they happened all the time.

Stringing together,

You know,

That would be my state of consciousness.

But in fact,

You know,

It's an occasional delightful experience and there's other times more like what you say.

Thank you.

Good morning.

So please.

Yes.

My question on Dr.

Spilett.

Is there any difference between depression and sloth or sloth procrastination?

A Tibetan teacher that I used to sit with from time to time,

Sokhi Rinpoche,

Would describe depression as what he called one-legged emptiness.

In other words,

Halfway there.

Right.

Halfway to enlightenment.

And the reason he would say that is because one characteristic of depression is giving up all hope of things ever getting better.

The other half of it is letting go of fear that things may get worse.

And so he basically says when both of those things are present,

You know,

Because depression,

Too often,

Certainly in my own experience at any rate,

Is accompanied by a certain amount of anxiety.

You know,

It's feeling the depressed state of mind plus fear that it's going to be endless or that it's going to get worse or something like that.

So a depressed state of mind,

As I experience depression from time to time,

Is one in which it's not just about the present moment.

Depression in large part is really about the future.

And it's because I don't like what I'm feeling in the moment.

I don't like the feeling of isolation.

I don't like the feeling of negative self-judgment.

I don't like the feeling that no one really understands what's going on with me.

It's got less to do in some ways just with,

Wow,

I really feel down right now.

And I'm looking at the world through smoky lens.

And I know I am,

But that doesn't change the fact that I am.

It's that extra part.

It's the anxiety about the worry that the state of mind is never going to go away.

It's never going to lift.

And I'm always going to be stuck here,

You know.

And so,

In other words,

It's the fear that things are going to get worse.

Right?

Rather than just,

This is what I'm experiencing now.

It's a compounded phenomenon.

Just like all other compounded phenomena,

It's going to arise and change and pass away.

So it becomes more a matter of how you close the doors.

And my own working with depressive state of mind,

When I'm able to extract that fear of the future,

Piece from it a little bit,

And just experience it in the moment,

What begins to happen then is that rather than,

When the depression is strong,

For me it is.

It's like there's been a gray curtain pulled across the world,

Where I'm looking at everything through a dull gray lens,

You know,

Affectless lens.

And when it's possible to see,

Oh,

Here is the arising of depression,

Essentially I don't feel quite so sunk into it,

Like being caught in a spider's web.

It's more like kind of being off to one side,

You know,

Mindful of the fact that the depressive state has arisen.

Mindful when it feels like it may be getting powerful or worse,

Mindful when it begins to dissipate.

Mindful from when it changes from what I might label as depression,

To what I might label as sadness,

Or loneliness,

Or despair,

Or whatever.

At any rate,

There's this fluid flow of mostly afflictive emotions,

But there is also the mindfulness of the fact that it's happening.

And it's the mindfulness of being able to step outside of the experience even while it's going on,

That then also makes possible the arising of compassion.

Because depression is a painful state of mind.

So you can say,

Oh,

You know,

Here I am experiencing depression.

This really feels crappy.

And so it's almost like,

You know,

There's this term in this practice called kalyana amita,

Or spiritual friend,

You know.

It's like having sufficient mindfulness to be aware of the fact that the depressive state has arisen,

But not be absorbed in it,

You know.

Basically,

Just being able to see that triggers the arising of this kind of spiritual friend within you to come and not make the depression go away,

But simply be with it in a compassionate way.

And oftentimes that does have the effect of dissipating it.

Is that useful?

Yeah.

I've gone through that.

It started with immersing myself in drugs and alcohol,

Not knowing why I'm doing that.

And then all of a sudden when I stopped,

I got haunted by that friend and would sleep a lot to sleep it off.

And it wasn't until someone,

I didn't know what the voice was really.

It was just really like harassing me for a short number of years.

And when someone from my mission called me,

Something sat with me and asked me to describe this voice.

And I just realized,

Oh shit,

It's him.

It's this guy.

And so after some time,

It went away and I did a ceremony.

It didn't happen right away,

But now I'm in this spot where I can help people with depression get through it a little bit.

Just like,

Don't know my story.

And now I'm working with someone now and it's gone from depression to loneliness.

I'm glad you put that out there.

Absolutely.

It'll morph from one thing to another to another.

But it is.

It's fluid.

It's like a flow.

And you obviously have insight into the fact that the alcohol was an effort to self-medicate,

That you were trying to escape the kind of pain that you were feeling because of the loss that had occurred.

And then the insight made it possible for you to see everything that was going on.

And from that flows the compassion.

Thank you.

So that's sort of your question.

So how is it different from Swapnitorpor if you're feeling that sort of numbness or the depression is different in that you're experiencing discomfort and you have some awareness?

Versus Swapnitorpor where there's no awareness?

And Swapnitorpor is basically a state of denial.

And the energy is being expended in an effort to stay in a state of deep denial.

And when you're mindful of the fact that some painful mind state like depression has arisen,

That's not denial.

That's saying,

Whoa,

Depression,

This really sucks.

Sound feels familiar,

You know.

And then you have an opportunity to inquire,

To have a look at that response,

That this really sucks response,

Being aversive to the fact that you're feeling depressed,

Which makes the depression stronger.

And then you see that and things begin to relax a little bit.

Just as we must.

It's gone,

Burned up another two perfectly good hours.

So let's let's get back into our sitting posture just for a moment if we can.

May we all live with ease,

Safe from all inner and outer harm.

May we discover the joy that lies within us and be happy.

May we find our inner silence and stillness and be at peace with ourselves and with others.

May we rest in generosity and kindness of heart,

One with all beings.

May we awaken and be free.

Have a good week.

Reviews

A talk about being with the mind-states even difficult ones. Insightful helpful applicable compassionate

This talk gave me a comprehensive understanding of this hindrance. Now i want to listen to all his talks!

Very helpful. Thank you 🙏🏼

Very good speech I liked how he broke things down and gave examples

Very informative & clarifying.
The statement 'what does my mind not want me to see' is something I look forward to asking during meditation.

Extremely helpful! Went through a period this morning very similar to what you experienced. PTSD or I should say CPTSD. Going to give this a try and dive into it. Thank you !

Definitely bookmark this one

Very informative. This talk is easy to listen to, interesting, and helpful. Thank you!

A great perspective. Clarification, and questions answered.

This was fantastic! I found this so beneficial. The talk, the life examples and the Q&A were all very informative. Will definitely listen again. 🙏🏻

Helpful for anyone at any level who is meditating.