Christian Life 34 - Five Hindrances - Make That Six

The first post I created regarding the peace-inducing effects of prayer and meditation was on March 18, 2024.  At that time I commented that the process of internalizing these effects, by all the estimates I've been able to locate, takes roughly ten years.  This being March 8, 2025, I suppose I'm now "one down, nine to go."

So far, the experience has been both good and bad.  Good in that I've already encountered more joy and serenity than at any point in my life (which has come in very handy during one of the most contentious election cycles in American history), bad in that I have continually felt frustrated in the sense that, no matter what I do, my mind tends to wander everywhere during my dedicated meditation hours.  Perhaps, if the reader has been attempting to keep pace, you have noticed the same frustration.

This week I learned not to worry about this; it's perfectly normal.  While I am definitely Christian in my beliefs, I continue to find the teachings of the Buddha often more accessible than those of the Christ, almost certainly because of the varying degree of Western influence on the respective texts.  The Buddha taught his monks that there were Five Hindrances that prevented one from being able to develop perfect mindfulness.  He named them and discussed their antidotes.  It is important for the practitioner to note that experiencing any or all of these hindrances does not make one a bad student.  In fact, everyone encounters them whenever one meditates.  The key to dealing with these hindrances is not to beat yourself up over them or give into them but to recognize them, welcome them, and deal with them according to one's training.  [As always, these same ideas were repeated and amplified by Jesus, and I will be mentioning specific quotations to show this.]  Let us, then, take a closer look at each Hindrance and it's antidote, with the continuing reminder that I myself am a novice and by no means a guru or lama.

(1) Sensual Desire - First of all, this does not mean carnal desire as is so often expressed in the West.  Sensual desire, quite literally, means "desire of the senses."  If, as a nun or monk, one is attempting to lead a life of celibacy, then Sensual Desire may, indeed, refer to feelings of lasciviousness and lust.  For the rest of us, however, Sensual Desire more likely refers to wanting a drink or a cigarette or a chocolate bar.  It could involve movies, video games, or social media, or even hunger or pain.  It could even refer to things we typically think of as good and wholesome like learning or human connection.  Sensual Desire simply means any craving or desire of the mind or body that distracts the spirit from the mindfulness of meditation.

The most obvious antidote for Sensual Desire is renunciation.  If your meditation time is constantly being interrupted by a craving for nicotine, then the tangible solution is to give up smoking.  Renunciation doesn't have to mean giving up a desire, though, but to continuously and systematically detach oneself from any possibly prejudiced motivations that might interfere with accomplishing one's proper duties regarding that desire. 

  In other cases, however, the antidote could be investigation.  Sometimes, when we really look deeply into desire, we find that there is an underlying lack, loneliness, boredom, or loss of purpose that is simply too painful to feel directly, so we seek stimulation elsewhere.  If we can honestly investigate that pain, if we can remind ourselves that life isn't fair - that we often don't get what we want - it becomes easier to feel the dissatisfaction that is fueling the hindrance, which is an essential first step in overcoming it.

Sometimes our investigations lead us to the conclusion that we don't really want to renounce our desires.  I like having my after-dinner drink; why should I give it up?  Well, that depends.  Why have you identified your after-dinner drink as a hindrance?  Is it interfering with your mindfulness, or isn't it?  Is it impeding your equanimity, or not?  Which is the priority, the mindfulness or the drink?  "Both" isn't an option.  Perhaps it is time to make a decision between alcohol and enlightenment and allow yourself to live with the consequences of that decision.

Jesus mentions several times that desire for the Holy Spirit can be substituted for sensual desire and therefore help with the renunciation process.  In Matt. 5:6 he says "Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full."  In John 4:14-15 he says, "Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst again.  The water I give them will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life."  And in John 7:37-38 he says, "All who are thirsty should come to me!  All who believe in me should drink!  As the scripture says concerning me, rivers of living water will flow out from within him." (all CEB)  The principle being discussed here is known in psychological circles as a habit replacement loop.  It's an exceptionally well-known tool for self-improvement.

(2) Ill Will -  The most obvious example of Ill Will as a hindrance to mindfulness is hatred or the desire for harm to others, but it can also refer to any manifestation of aversion and negativity.  In Western psychology, this is referred to as "negativity bias."  Of all the Five Hindrances, this is probably the easiest to understand.  The human mind and body are designed to focus on the negative as a survival instinct.  In primeval terms, overlooking a danger would likely have a far more profound impact on one's survival than having noticed a pleasantry.  However, in modern culture there is a tendency to take this survival instinct too far: instead of  simply recognizing a potential danger and taking steps to keep ourselves safe, we tend to turn uneasiness of others into hatred and malice.

The antidote for Ill Will is compassion, and compassion has been the focus of much of our study up to this point.  When we can see others - and the more difficult parts of ourselves - as suffering beings just like us (even the more dangerous ones), we may be able to develop more compassion toward them even while maintaining appropriate boundaries.  Loving kindness, forgiveness, patience, investigation and equanimity are all a part of the compassion we can create for our fellow creatures.

Again, Jesus had much to say on this subject.  In the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:7), he says "Blessed are the compassionate for they will receive compassion." The parables of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) and the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) both serve as case studies in compassion.  And, of course, the numerous times he said or implied "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:35-40, Mark 12:31, et al).

(3) Sloth and Torpor -  Sloth refers to the mental hindrances of low motivation, laziness or apathy while torpor refers to the more physical hindrances of sleepiness, sluggishness or fogginess.  They can manifest as overwhelmness, brain fog, freezing, or collapse or more subtly as ordinary sleepiness or disinterest.  Low energy can be rooted in loss of purpose, weak or unclear intentions, or a low tolerance for discomfort, especially emotional discomfort.  Jesus tells the parable of the slothful servant in Matthew 25.

Of course, sometimes we're just sleepy or hungry or thirsty, or there is some other physical reason for our Sloth or Torpor.  Sometimes it can be quite difficult to distinguish between our physical, mental and spiritual hindrances.  It takes some practice to make these distinctions, so, not infrequently during our early efforts, the antidote for Sloth and Torpor may simply be to take a nap, eat a snack, drink some water or get some exercise.  The traditional ways of dealing with lethargy in practice is to do something to wake yourself up: switch from a sitting meditation to a walking meditation, look up at the light, move about more vigorously, even just pinch your earlobes!  If the root of the hindrance is emotional - which it often is - allowing oneself to feel and examine the underlying emotions and bringing mindfulness and compassion to them can brighten the energy and allow one to move into the quiet state.

(4) Restlessness and Worry -  This hindrance is the opposite of Sloth and Torpor.  It refers to somatic (restlessness) and mental (worry) manifestations of excessive energy.  This extremely common hindrance is one that is often championed in Western society as a virtue through our concepts of fast pace living, over scheduling, multitasking and ubiquitously short attention spans.  Often it simply takes a good deal of time for Westerners to train themselves in the art of calm, quiet meditative practices, so it is possible that the best antidote to this hindrance is simply patience with oneself as one moves along the learning curve.

In Genesis 3:19, God says that "you will eat bread by the sweat of your brow."  In modern culture we think of this as referring to hard labor and toil, but in ancient Hebrew "sweat of the brow" was an idiom that referred to anxiety.   This gives the impression that restlessness and worry are simply part of the human condition and have been since the beginning.  But Jesus counters this argument in Matt. 6:28-33 with "Why are you worried about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these...Do not worry then, saying 'what shall we eat?' or 'what shall we drink?' or 'what shall we wear?'...for your Heavenly Father knows you need these things..."

The most powerful antidote to restlessness is any sort of concentration.  All of us have had times when we were so focused on what we were doing that no sort of distraction could interfere with our task.  Simplifying our sensory environment, controlling the pinging notifications and obsessive media engagement we've all normalized, and doing one thing at a time can help us to be less restless.  In the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition they practice the meditation of the bells.  A bell is sounded within the monastery at irregular intervals.  Each time the bell sounds, the monks must stop whatever they are doing (often in mid-sentence) and take three cleansing breaths before returning to their tasks.  A great Western equivalent to this is to make a habit of stopping everything to take three cleansing breaths whenever our phones ring or we hear a buzzer, siren or bell.  And, like sloth and torpor, we can explore the experience of restlessness directly, looking for any underlying painful emotion we might be trying to avoid.

(5) Skeptical Doubt - For many practitioners, the most difficult hindrance may be the slippery slope of doubt.  This can be aggravated by the awareness that a healthy amount of skepticism is actually virtuous in that it hinders us from being misled by unscrupulous persons.  But in Buddhist tradition, skeptical doubt refers to a loss of faith or no longer trusting in the Dharma, the Sangha or one's teachers.  It's hard enough to trust in others, but it's even more devastating to loose faith in oneself.  

Doubt can be debilitating; it makes us inert.  When we have no faith in the outcome, life seems hardly worth the effort.  But the truth is, an informal poll shows that, on the whole, our efforts are successful and futile in more or less equal measure (even without our meditative enlightenment) when engaging in tasks outside our expertise, and certainly far more frequently successful when we know what we're doing.  Jesus was himself a firm proponent of the power of belief.  In Matt. 21:21 he says ""Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen."  In John 16:33 he says "I have told you these things that you may have peace.  In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart!  For I have overcome the world."

The main antidote to doubt is  seeing it and naming it for what it is.  Doubt is a story - something the mind conjures up when it wants to turn us away from the Eightfold Path.  When the going gets tough, the mind wants to give up, and the idea of reducing the energy of our efforts can be quite seductive.  But when we see a discouraging narrative for what it is, the story loses some of its power over us.

Doubt is often difficult to dispel alone.  Sometimes it's good to have supportive friends and family members - prayer partners, if you will -  who can see our goodness and remind us that, though the road ahead is still quite long, the steps we've already taken have profited us beyond what we would have first imagined.

Those are the Five Hindrances of the Buddha.  I have found that, from time to time, I've suffered from all of them.  However, in my own meditations, I've observed that, more frequently than any of these, I've been hindered by something beyond this list.  My most frequent hindrance, which I am listing as the Sixth, is than of good old-fashioned pride.  So, with apologies to a 2500-year-old-tradition, I'm adding:

(6) Pride - Ever since I began attempting to meditate, I have found that my mental drifting feels more or less like just that: drifting.  One thought floats by, and I gently steer away from it and back to my concentration point.  No sooner have I refocused than another thought wafts lazily into my head, and the process repeats.

There is one exception to this rule; one thought that, once fixed in my mind, stubbornly refuses to budge no matter how clear and concise the rebuttal.  Whenever I believe I've gained a new insight - or even if a new idea simply pops into my head - the method by which I examine that idea is to imagine myself in a grand lecture hall explaining that insight or idea to a group of skeptical students.  I then engage in an imaginary Q&A over the concept.

Now, on the one hand, this arguing with myself seems like a good way to thoroughly look into a new concept as my "student" voice is forcing my "professor" voice to defend himself against as varied an onslaught of doubt as I am at the moment able to conjure, thus forcing myself to hone an idea or ultimately dismiss it, as the case may be. I'm certain that this was the original intent in having developed this method of thinking.  On the other hand, having used this method now for decades, I already know before I even begin the exchange who will eventually win the debate!  Furthermore, when I project this idea of debating an issue into a futuristic "real world" exchange and think to myself how real life interlocutors will benefit from my wisdom, I realize that it's a sham; that, emotionally, I'm less interested in the aid I will be able to provide others and more how my potential proteges will admire my cleverness.  And, of course, at no point in my fantasy lecture do I give credit to the other great teachers who provided me with the insight in the first place!  This vanity is a constant threat to my meditations, and I must stay on my toes to subdue it all day long.

It may surprise you to know that the best antidote to pride that I have found to date is awe.  I never expected awe to be antithetical to pride; the two do not at first glance appear to be opposites.  Indeed, they seem to have nothing to do with one another.  But, as it turns out, that's because we actually know so very little about the sensation of awe.

Awe, as a singular emotion, has been ignored by research scientists until quite recently.  Even today, it is difficult to find more than a handful of comprehensive studies that look into awe as an isolated emotion, uncoupled from other feelings (Shiota, Keltner and Mossman Psychology Press, 2007; Summer Allen, UC Berkeley Press, 2018).  What those studies that exist indicate, however, is that awe is a powerful emotion that doesn't get nearly enough credit in its ability to moderate our physical/mental/spiritual health, and it certainly serves as an excellent pride repellent.

Different people feel awe in response to different elicitors.  Common elicitors include nature, art & music, another's accomplishments, social interactions, and personal accomplishments, any or all of which can illicit awe in various individuals.  But, regardless the stimulus, almost every subject tested reported the same basic responses to awe, which Keltner and Haidt (Cognition and Emotion, 2003)  categorized as "perceptual vastness" and "need for accommodation."  These responses typically manifest as a sense of smallness or insignificance, sensing the presence of something greater than oneself, a dulling in awareness of day-to-day concerns, a sense of connection with the world around oneself, a desire for the experience to continue, and a connection with one's cultural and personal values. Some subjects also reported sensations of challenge, fatigue, intensity, meaningfulness and novelty.

As for a Biblical reference to the incredible power of awe, I find it most telling that, in the story of the Transfiguration as told in Matthew 17, Jesus reveals his full awesome power to Peter, James and John, the proudest of his apostles.

Is any of this sounding familiar yet?  Back on May 10, 2024, in a post titled "Wrapping Up," I suggested including in one's meditation session the idea of imagining oneself floating outside one's body and looking at the neighborhood, the town, the planet and finally the stars from a position of "above and outside."  The whole point of this exercise is to develop a greater sense of awe and, in doing so, diminish one's pride.  Of course, this is merely a substitute for the real thing, a way to bring awe to oneself from within rather than without.  Still having trouble focusing?  Put Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," Mangione's "Bellavia, or some other great piece of music on Spotify or iTunes while you meditate.  If you can get some time away, try to make regular trips into the countryside or, at least, a heavily wooded nearby park.  Visit the zoo or a museum.  See a play; not a movie, a play.  In short, if you're struggling with pride as I do, seek out occasions to feel awe.  It's amazing what it will do for your perspective.

I've learned a few other things this week, but that seems to be more than enough for now.

Pax