We have devoted some time to the hindrance of aversion listening to Joseph Goldstein’s talk on the subject. We also listened to his teaching on the hindrance of sloth and torpor which was quite rigorous and quite Joseph. I was reminded of an article written by a black woman called something like “Napping Buddha” about the deep rest needed by those who have endured the sustained stress of racial prejudiced and poverty. I would add the various weird illnesses we have come to know that leave us with debilitating fatigue. So sloth and torpor as a hindrance needs to discerned from genuine fatigue and the need for rest.
For an interesting discussion of sloth and torpor and the need for sleep, I have included this conversation among meditators and monastics on the Buddha’s instructions on sleep and warnings against the hindrance of sloth and torpor.
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/whats-up-with-the-recommendations-for-little-sleep/30979
There are three hindrances we have not talked about - a reminder that a hindrance is that which interferes with our meditation and our mindfulness. The three we have not touched on are greed or craving or just wanting, restless and remorse - worry and agitation are also included, and doubt.
It might be helpful to illustrate these hindrances through the common experience of a multi-hindrance attack. It may begin with restlessness, some agitation in the body. This is considered one of the last hindrances to go in the meditative life - perhaps because it has its root in our existential fear, the constant present of death in life. It can take the form of anxiety, of nameless fears, of late night worrying, of physical itchiness that makes us move around. In meditation we may have already discovered that our greatest desire is for peace, for calm, for tranquillity. Restless and remorse, agitation and anxiety are anything but that.
So it makes us dissatisfied. We want to be peaceful and tranquil and instead we may experience tension, or flashes of excitation in the body, especially the tummy but also the arms, chest, legs, the mind jumping around. Without mindfulness (and even with mindfulness), we might look around for a cause outside of ourselves. And usually there is something in our lives to be dissatisfied with and our minds might latch on to that something as the “cause” of all our worries and anxieties - or bodily agitation. So we may focus on the “cause” with aversion and distaste. So now we have restlessness and remorse, wanting to feel some other way, and aversion to our perceived “cause” for feeling this way all showing up all at once.
This may lead to a fourth hindrance - doubt. We may also decide that all of our misery at not getting what we want, not being able to find peace in our meditation is caused by the meditation itself - with the wrong practice, or maybe the wrong teachings or teacher, or maybe we’re just no good at this meditation business. We just can’t do it. Doubt has now joined the other hindrances. It is good to be discerning about our practice but wisdom feels clear and alert. Doubt is cloudy, murky, resentful, accusatory, and self-judgmental. We may feel so down that we get sleepy so now our multi-hindrance attack is complete with all five hindrances in a tangle.
This is one example of a multi-hindrance attack. Sometimes just bringing awareness to it, turning towards it, seeing the empty nature of these thoughts and suppositions, and remembering that this too shall pass - impermanence - is sufficient to begin to dissipate these energies. Sometimes relaxing into the suffering and saying,”This is just the way it is” can be freeing.
Being content with what is is a powerful antidote to the hindrances. Content to just sit, content to investigate, content to know that meditation has its ups and downs and grasping onto the highs is no more useful than pushing away the lows. If we practice - whether sitting, standing, walking, or lying down - we are moving forward on the path. It is not for us to understand how our practice is unfolding. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening and other times we can see decided movement and change.
I was recently reminded of the story of the little boy who planted carrot seeds. Every day he went out to check if the carrots had sprouted. Finally, one day, there they were, little wispy shoots emerging above the ground. But the little boy was impatient and wanted to know if they were carrots yet. So he pulled up the tender shoots. Of course they weren’t and the story doesn’t tell us if there were enough sprouts left to develop into carrots. In meditation, as long as we persist, there will be.
So why is it important to know about the hindrances? We all encounter obstacles to our meditation along the way. They are part of the path - see Jack Kornfield’s article below.* There are a few reasons - one is that these energies appear in our daily lives, not just during our meditation periods. If we experience a lot of agitation in our lives, it will surface when we quiet our minds. If we slide and glide through life, always putting off, making excuses, taking naps, this energy will also be present during meditation. Jack Kornfield surprised me into wakefulness during one sleepy meditation period by asking, “What is it you don’t want to feel?” Sometimes sleepiness is our way of avoiding feelings that are difficult to experience. And as much as these energies hinder us in our daily lives, they will appear in our meditations and invite us to see them, work with them, understand them, and eventually be free of them. In the here and now, our understanding of the hindrances can help us learn to hold them in abeyance to go deeper into our meditations. * https://jackkornfield.com/making-the-hindrances-part-of-the-path/
And that leads to the other reason to be aware of the hindrances. There are antidotes to the hindrances that will help us disentangle from them, measures we can employ that will help us gain insight into the hindrance and find release from its constricting energy. Mindfulness is key. It can help us see the energy for what it is, investigate it further, find connections, and free ourselves. Loving kindness can counter aversion and can soften our hearts toward ourselves and others.
The Buddha had a set of similes for considering the energies of the hindrances: The teachings compare a person enslaved by covetousness (greed, wanting) as being in debt, a person caught by ill will or aversion as sick, gravely ill, a person entrapped by sloth and torpor as being imprisoned in jail, a person caught in restlessness and remorse as a slave, and a person enthrall to doubt as a person traveling a perilous journey across a desert with nothing to eat. Freedom from the hindrances is like getting out of debt, recovering from illness, being released from prison, being freed from slavery, and arriving to safety. This freedom from the hindrances is the ground for awakening.