Five Hindrances

I recently gave a talk about five hindrances at my temple's Sunday morning online gathering. I am sharing this talk with anyone who wishes to learn them. I find awareness of these hindrances are keys to living with greater mindfulness and clarity, thus it becomes easier for us to have a deeper level of stillness to access the Jhanas. Jhana is a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the chosen object of attention.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Mir Munsa.

I gave a talk about the five hindrances of my temple online gathering and I wanted to share with everyone with this recording of the talk.

While reciting the Heart Sutra,

We come across the words of Buddha's conversation with Venerable Shri Putra.

The phrase goes as,

The bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita.

Therefore,

The mind has no hindrance.

Without any hindrance,

No fear exists.

Free from delusion,

One dwells in nirvana.

In order to enter the state of nirvana,

We need to free our minds from the hindrances.

By remembering these hindrances when they arise during our meditation practice,

As well as daily living,

We learn to let them go in order to gain calm abiding mind and clear the path towards entering samadhi,

Which is a blissful meditative state of mind.

I was grateful to learn in detail what these hindrances are after reading a book titled The Mind Illuminated,

A complete meditation guide integrating Buddhist wisdom and brain science,

Written by Kulabasa,

Aka John Yates,

He has a PhD,

And with Matthew Emergood and Jeremy Graves.

I wanted to learn more about these hindrances when they show up as an obstacle on my meditation practice and my everyday life,

Of the Christian.

In this talk,

I have included some examples from chapters I read in the book,

As well as my own interpretation of the things that made clear some of the hindrances.

As we continue our practice,

We become more aware of our mind and its strengths and weaknesses.

By bringing awareness to the unconscious habits that do not help us progress in our spiritual path,

We learn to free ourselves from the bondage of samsara.

Samsara is defined as the cycle of death and rebirth to which life and the material world is bound.

If indeed we wish to be awakened being and free ourselves from the cycle of birth and death,

Overcoming these hindrances help us progress in the path and to live a peaceful and conscious life.

On the way to our ultimate goal.

The five hindrances are one,

Worldly desires,

Two,

Aversions,

Three,

Laziness and lethargy,

Four,

Agitation due to remorse and worry,

Five,

Doubt.

I'll explain a little about these arising mental states and their opposing meditation factors.

One,

Worldly desires.

Worldly desires are the pursuit of pleasures related to our material existence and the desire to avoid their opposites.

They are gain and loss,

Pleasure and pleasure,

Fame and obscurity,

Praise and blame.

Opposing factors.

Unification of the mind.

A unified mind does not mean all your submind join together to form a single entity.

Whenever minds are unified,

Our subminds agree to effortlessly follow as we intended.

The result is more contentment and peace as we go about our day.

When we sit with an intention to meditate,

We can easily notice the arising of wandering thoughts.

Each of these subminds have different ideas,

Insights and they bring them to our attention when we are intending to meditate,

Focusing on the sensations of our breath.

As we become aware of them,

We learn to let them go in order to bring our attention back to our meditation object.

Over time,

The subminds learn to stay focused and we gain the power of concentration.

As we develop a clear,

Energetic and peaceful mind,

We become less attached to the worldly desires.

Our mind want us to be happy and often think of these worldly desires will bring us more joy,

But they never bring us everlasting happiness.

We end up craving for more joy.

We end up craving for more because of the fear of not having enough and that leads to further suffering.

Aversion is a negative mental state involving judgment,

Rejection and denial.

It includes hatred,

Anger,

Resentment,

Dissatisfaction,

And the lack of love.

A version of the negative mental state includes hatred,

Anger,

Resentment,

Dissatisfaction,

Criticism,

Impatience,

Self-accusation and boredom.

Many times these state of mind arise due to sensory experiences.

The key is to become aware of them when they arise and notice them without judgment and observe them with compassion and wisdom.

The opposing factor,

Pleasure and happiness.

There is little room for negativity in a mind filled with bliss.

I have noticed that anytime after a good meditation session,

I can reach a calm and peaceful state of mind and in those moments,

I can truly become free from the negative state of mind due to the activities of the sensory conditions.

Whenever the negative state of mind arises and when I'm aware,

I can observe without identifying myself as these emotions.

When we develop our ability to clearly see them for what they are,

We become disenchanted and aversions can leave on their own.

We can also look at our aversions with kindness so that we are not judging them.

With thinking that this is who we are.

Number three,

Laziness and lethargy.

Laziness mostly appears as procrastination.

Its counterpart,

Lethargy,

Is a tendency towards inactivity,

Rest and ultimately sleep.

Both involve a lack of energy.

When we lack motivation,

Laziness and lethargy arise and keep us from making enough effort.

Laziness arises when the cost of an activity seem to outweigh the benefits.

Other times,

We are simply tired and our body and mind need rest to recover our energy.

Rest is a better use of our time than engaging in unproductive activities.

The meditation factor of director attention imposes laziness and lethargy.

In meditation,

Just doing it means you keep directing attention to the meditation object,

Countering procrastination and any loss of mental energy.

Eventually,

Director attention becomes powerful and automatic enough to completely overcome laziness and lethargy.

For example,

While starting a project,

I find motivation in the process other than the end result and this gives me the fuel I need to see to its completion.

Four,

Agitation due to remorse and worry.

While meditating,

Remorse is unwise.

Unwholesome immoral or illegal activities causes the mind to feel guilty and remorseful.

We often worry about consequences for our past actions or about things we imagine might happen to us.

Worry and remorse makes it hard to focus mental resources on anything else.

The practice of sila or virtue is the remedy towards an unwholesome mental state.

Meditative joy and feeling good for wholesome and selfless activities can bring us happiness.

Joy overcomes worry because it produces confidence and optimism.

Joy overcomes remorse because a joyful person regrets past harms and is eager to set things right.

My personal joy practice includes daily yoga and meditation practice,

Generosity,

Reading,

Writing,

Painting,

And exercising,

And being of service with my thoughts,

Speech,

And actions.

As I continue my existence in a way that brings less suffering to others and myself and that which cultivates more joy,

I automatically become free from worry and remorse.

Sometimes an event in life can take us away from feeling more generous and from the state of joy.

In those moments,

It helps remember the law of impermanence and become aware how this is integrated as part of existing as a person.

Lastly,

Number five,

Doubt.

A doubtful mind is the biased,

Unconscious mental process focused on negative possible outcomes.

The kind of uncertainty that makes us hesitate and keep us from making the effort needed to validate something through our own experiences.

Self-doubt saps our will and undermines intentions.

When we set intention that is wholesome and we enjoy the process other than the end result,

Our doubt fades.

The key ingredient is enjoyment.

We can be purposeful when it comes to seeing the joy in any activities we are participating in.

Oftentimes,

We can't wait to get something done so we can get to the next thing.

We end up resenting the present moment while taking part in the project we are involved in.

The act of meditation may feel doubtful with restlessness toward longing for the mind state of an enlightened being.

As we gain the momentum from our daily practice and see the difference between the meditative mind versus an anxious and agitated mind,

We become less doubtful and gain more faith in our practice.

The remedy for doubt is to use logical abilities to envision the possibilities of a long-term success,

Countering the short-term emotional pressure of these hindrance.

Once we have overcome the paralyzing effects of doubt,

We can move forward with stronger motivation and through action we can achieve certainty.

The ultimate remedy towards doubt is the trust and confidence that comes from success and success depends on persistent effort.

Remembering life is a journey and in this journey we can find joy when we look for it.

Anything that is not a journey,

Anything we give our attention to,

We become better at it and the better we become at something,

It becomes effortless for us to perform in the future.

When we are aware of these hindrances,

We learn to overcome them with awareness,

Attention,

Alertness,

And calm state of mind and experiencing the mind state which brings us more joy in life.

We tend to progress in our practice and reach closer to our goals.

In this case,

The goal here is to become free from the hindrances.

In absence of these hindrances,

Fears will diminish or even as the fears arises,

We see them for what they are.

We become free from delusion and our mind state to reach closer to dwelling in nirvana.

This is what I wanted to share.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Much to think about. I will be coming back to this.