7. Day 3, morning

Day three is sometimes characterized as being a difficult day. But I often feel that the first and second days are more difficult myself. You will be feeling very tired. You will be feeling quite exhausted. Don’t start following your thoughts or getting trapped in your thinking, in your own whispering mind. Of course it’s challenging. Everyone is facing their own challenges. It won’t be long before you can pull yourself out of these mind state. It’s what we are here for. We are training to pull ourself out of difficult mind states such as stress, worry, anguish. We are learning how to come out of it. If we never learn how to come out of that through meditation, then you always come out of your mind states using something else. Wether it be some kind of sensuality or some kind of distraction, some kind of technology or whatever it may be. So why not use our own mind, our awareness and wisdom to pull us out of these mind states?

This morning we are going to talk about the five hindrances or the panca nivarana. These are mind states which are contained in the fourth section of the satipatthana text, in the section called dhamma-nupassana or recollection of mind objects. These are thought processes that are arising and passing away. The Buddha asked us to observe them, to become aware of them, to fully understand them. To say these five hindrances are an impediment to our meditation would be an understatement. They do disturb 114 our practice. They make it difficult to do the mediation practice, however, these mental states are also an important vehicle for insight. You can learn a lot about the nature of the mind through observing your reactions and your thought patterns to things.

We can temporarily overcome these hindrances in our meditation practice, but they are only fully removed at the noble eightfold path. When we reach the level of stream entry, some of the hindrances will be cut off, in particular doubt will be cut off.

Turning our attention to these hindrances at the time of a meditation retreat can sometimes be a little bit late. These hindrances are always arising in our mind. They’re always there. In fact, they are much of our mental life which is spent floating around in those hindrances. It’s because of these hindrances that our mind does not become concentrated at deeper levels of samadhi. Because these hindrances are always getting in our way, they’re always blocking us, always disturbing our meditation development.

So what we will be doing here is identifying these mental states. You will all be experiencing one or two of the hindrances or unfortunately maybe five of the hindrances. Listen to them and see if you can identify these mental states going on and see if they’re causing you any problem. We just need to note them, know and let them go! The same technique is prescribed to the mental objects and to mental states. They are constantly with us, these five hindrances. The five hindrances are constantly coming to disturb us.

The five hindrances are legitimate objects of our satipatthana practice. They are presently arising, they are dependently arisen, conditioned and they are impermanent and they are unsatisfactory and they are impersonal. They don’t belong to anyone. So see if you can notice these defilements. These five hindrances are types of defilements, types of imperfections of the mind that come to cloud the mind in their own way so that the mind can’t see things clearly. They kind of get in the way by the five hindrances attacking the mind.

So in our meditation practice we need to keep alert, be aware. If you find that you are being attacked by one of these five hindrances, you will need to address the problem. You will need to have a close look at it, make a note of which hindrance is occurring and try to step away from it. Try to 115 disconnect or disengage from the mental state. It will still be there, it may have some unpleasantness or it may have some pleasantness associated with it. Try to step away, stop engaging with that particular state. Watch it pass away. Watch it dissolve under the light of awareness and wisdom.

There’s a wonderful quote the Buddha gives us. «Whatever a bikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind.» Whatever we think about, in the way we are thinking whilst we are thinking, we are actually conditioning our own mind until we become that person! If we are constantly getting frustrated and agitated, constantly developing little states of aversion all the time, then chances are we are developing that and that we turn into that person. We are going to turn into an angry person! We’re going to turn into a person with a lot of issues about other people or other things. So be aware of this tendency, be aware of this conditioning process. Whatever you frequently think and ponder upon, that will become the inclination of your mind. So be very careful!

If you constantly worry about things, you are conditioning your mind to be in a state of fear and then you become that person. You start to live that reality because you have been conditioning your mind. Frequently thinking and pondering upon. Every moment you’re conditioning. So be very careful with what kind of thoughts you start to condition the mind with, because that is what you end up as. That is the reality you start to live.

If you noticed that you have come under the sway of a hindrance, don’t feed it with any more thoughts about it. We are not here to continuously think about things. Thinking is not meditation. Thinking feeds the mind states. Just like the dog that comes to visit your house. If you feed it, it is likely to come back the next day. If you feed it again, it will come back and end up sleeping on your couch. That’s what happens when we start to feed things. They come back and they become part of the furniture. They become part of our experience of life. So be careful with these five hindrances.

These are the five things you need to let go in order to enter jhana, to enter the states of samadhi, necessary for unfolding insight. You will need to remove these. We don’t try and push them away. This is important to remember. We are not trying to push away anything or get rid of anything. We are not trying to get anything, or to become anything. We are checking 116 our attitude in how we are meditating and we are just observing whatever is there. We are just accepting that it is there. We may not like it, but we accept it as this present moment experience contained with this. That’s what’s there. You accept it for what it is. You note it’s there, you disengage from it, step back from it and just let it go. It drops by itself as soon as you’ve disengaged from it.

These five hindrances are very habitual states of mind. They are constantly coming back and we are constantly reacting in the same way to things. It becomes a habit. We start to condition ourselves with things. If you don’t like tomato sauce, you start to condition yourself and will never like it. As far as our mind is concerned we are just reacting. We’ve developed a pattern of disliking. Whenever we see a bottle of tomato sauce, we avoid it. If someone puts tomato sauce on our food, we become upset, because we don’t like it. We haven’t been eating tomato sauce for 10 years and still react in the same way. There is some disliking there because we have conditioned the mind. We have done this in many, many ways throughout our lives. We have developed little habits, tendencies. So we need to have a look at these. We need to see the suffering that these tendencies have caused us and then we will be able to let them go, to be able to break the cycle of reaction. We don’t have to be reacting machines. We can be alert and aware in the present moment, allowing whatever it is to arise noting it, knowing it and letting it go.

7.1. First hindrance kāmacchanda

So the first hindrance is known as kāmacchanda or sensual desire. It means desiring things of the sense doors, wanting sensual pleasures, wanting pleasurable objects that arise through the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body doors. It is a state of mind of wanting, seeking, wanting to get something, wanting to change something. When you’re wanting things. When the mind goes off desiring, yearning, a strong desire to get a higher education degree or a strong desire to try and buy an expensive house or get a fancy car or whatever it may be. Have a look if your mind is inclining towards this. «Oh I like that yoga mat, oh that is a nice top I want to get», whatever it is that you start looking at and start liking and wanting. It is amazing how the mind will 117 find something even in the barren environment to start liking, to start wanting. We are looking at the tendency. Not so much the objects. We want to know if the mind energy of sensual desire is there. We want to see if there is any inclination of the mind wanting to go out and enjoy sensuality. Passion. Lusting. Maybe you have spotted someone on the retreat and had a look at their body having lustful thoughts. Or you’re thinking about when lunch is going to be. There can be many other different things that we crave for, that we wish for. So have a look at this kind of coveting mind.

Especially for beautiful things. We hope and desire and want things which are beautiful. We think they will make us happy in some way. Desirous, we work hard to get the things that we think are beautiful.

Sometimes we are just after refinements in sensuality. You have a cotton shirt and want to get a silk shirt. You want other flip-flops. Other sunglasses, thinking of upgrading, to get things better. Maybe you are thinking of upgrading your boyfriend or maybe of upgrading to a new kind of relationship. You’re trying to get things better. This kind of energy that flows through the mind of wanting. It’s reaching out to things and desiring them. This is a hindrance that comes to play in our meditation practice. When we sit and meditate and it starts to want something. Maybe it’s something at home, maybe some kind of recognition, maybe it wants some power, or it wants to be somebody famous. It wants to be something.

Looking for nice food when getting out of here, wanting to go to a party, dancing, fun activities. That’s fine but just have a look at that craving, wanting energy. We normally go for these kind of objects when we are experiencing dukkha, when there is some unpleasantness in our life. When we are maybe not too comfortable in a dorm room, when we have been sitting on the floor for many hours, when we are extremely tired or frustrated. Perhaps the sound of my voice starts to annoy you thinking this is unbearable for you. Whatever it is that you’re kind of finding that you want to change. You’re wanting something to be different. Look at that! There is nothing wrong here but there may be some resistance in your mind.

You may be missing the normal objects that you delight yourself. Maybe you’re used to having an evening beer and a joint. Maybe you’re missing your partner, your lover. Maybe you want to have certain food, a 118 certain environment. Maybe you are missing a comfortable bed. «I want air-con.» These are simple things that we start to think about, but they come to disturb our meditation. Particularly if we start looping and thinking about them again and again. Be careful because you start to condition the mind.

The Buddha gives us a simile of dyed water. The water is normally crystal-clear but the water has become all colored and we cannot see through the water too clearly. This is what the mind with sensual desire is like. The normal state of the mind without the five hindrances is bright and clear. It knows things. It sees things quite clearly. Because of these hindrances it has become clouded with color so that we can’t see into it. We can’t see things as they really are. We are seeing our projections and our conceptualizations that we paint on top of everything.

So we’re bringing ourselves into the present moment, activate our awareness, become aware of this sensual desire in our mind. Try not to get caught up in the story of the sensual desire. That means don’t think about the objects of your sensual desire – pizza, girls, going on a diving trip, whatever it is that you’re wanting. You can be sure that everyone will have some sensual desire, something we can enjoy through the eye, ear, nose, tongue or the body doors. This is very much how we spend our time here in the human realm. Most of our time we spend chasing something delightful that we can enjoy. We want things. Have a look at that. When you notice that there is any desiring of something, make a note ‚desiring, desiring, wanting, wanting, lusting, lusting,…’ nothing is too small to note. No thought that is arising is too small, too insignificant to note. We need to note continuously because what is happening is the mind is going into the objects, and then we note, and we’re coming out of it. We go in and then we come out. We go in and then we come out. This is because our awareness and wisdom is not continuous enough yet. So we can note something, then we wander a little bit, note something and wander again a little bit. We want to get to the stage where we can hold back the whole flood of objects coming in through the six sense doors with our awareness and our wisdom so that we don’t go out of our meditation practice. So that we can create a void area, a demilitarized zone, if you like around all these mind objects. So we can stay back and not let them touch us or disturb us in any way.

7.2. Second hindrance vyāpāda

119 The second hindrance is known as vyāpāda. It means ill will or aversion. This is the mind state which does not like stuff. The opposite of the first one. It is always trying to get rid of something. This is the type of mental reaction if we don’t like something. We develop some kind of aversion or anger it can escalate to, states of irritation, where the mind becomes annoyed with something, maybe it’s some kind of frustration state. Once it arises, if we don’t note it and know it, it’s going to start looping, it’s going to start turning around again and again, irritating us, getting us more upset, getting us more unmindful and then going into it again, thinking about it again, not wanting this, anything but this. To get out of here. These kind of mind states start to arise.

We start judging, comparing, complaining, resisting things. We want to push them away. We don’t like it. Look at this type of energy, this frustration or annoyance or aversion or judgment. Maybe you’re judging others. Out there on the walking path, you’re looking at other people, judging: «Oh, they are not walking very fast. Walking too fast. They’re being slack. They’re not sitting. Oh, they’re leaning against a wall. Oh, she’s sitting very straight.» Maybe you’re judging people like that. You start comparing yourself with others.

Maybe you have some unfulfilled expectations. Maybe you thought you’re going to come here, sitting nice and peaceful, with candles and incense, with Spa music in the background. No, your expectations have not been fulfilled!

Maybe you started blaming others: «I can’t meditate because that girl is always coughing. I can’t do the walking meditation, because that guy is moving his arms around all time. I can’t get any sleep because lizards are in my room.» Maybe you start to blame the whole world for all your troubles here. There’s nothing wrong with the world! There may be some issues in your mind. So have a look at this stuff as it starts to bubble up.

Sometimes it can be funny to have a look at the mind. Again and again to see how ridiculous our reactions are. We find it amusing if we can pull ourselves out it. If we can’t pull ourselves out of it, we start looping, we start to cause ourselves a lot of dukkha.

120 Have a look at that pushing away energy. Have a look at the mind, the image of your reaction. That’s all it’s doing. It’s reacting to things. It’s like a two year old. It’s not getting what it wants. «I want it to be otherwise. I don’t wanted to be like this. I want to be like that.» See how you’re reacting. If you are reacting like that and identifying with those mind states, is it causing happiness or suffering? Can you feel the suffering flowing through your veins of the body? Can you feel being upset with it? If you don’t deal with it here, where are you going to deal with it? It’s just going to keep coming up. You’re going to keep reacting in the same way until you set yourself up to be a constant reactor. Maybe a nuclear reactor if you get upset about people. There are some explosions awaiting to happen.

Maybe you are comparing. Some people have been to different meditation retreats, done a few different techniques and they’ve started to compare. «On this retreat we were allowed to do that. Here we’re not allowed to.» You start to get aversion toward something. Comparing, judging. «This one is better for me. The food is really good here but the silence is really good there.»

So have a look at the complaining or criticizing mind. Your reflections or your criticism of things that are going on, are just a reflection of your own mind. It’s just displaying how you are reacting in the world. When we are here in silence, it’s a very good chance to see what we are. It’s a very good chance to see how our mind reacts and to see how we can handle how our mind reacts to things. You’re going to have to come to terms with your mental states at some time. You have to watch them.

If you are not aware of them or don’t know how to deal with them, you will be constantly in trouble. Constantly causing yourself stress. You are a ‘the grass is always greener over there’-person. Constantly shuffling. «It’s not good enough here, I have to go over there.»

Sometimes people run around looking for enlightenment. They think happiness is going to be outside somewhere. Maybe in a particular ashram in the Himalaya, maybe on a beach in South America. But that is not how it is. These things are happening in the mind. Our problems are in the mind. Happiness is right here and dukkha is right here as well – right here in this very body! «In this fathom length body is dukkha, the arising of dukkha, the ces- sation of dukkha and the path leading to the cessation do dukkha.» 121 We don’t need to look outside anywhere for our supreme happiness. It is right here!

External stuff is just a distraction for us. It’s just sensuality. Just to kind of keep us going so the whole world doesn’t implode in some enormous dukkha state. If we didn’t have any sensuality, imagine what an existence we would be living in. If we didn’t have awareness and wisdom and couldn’t engage in sensuality, then our life would become a never-ending nightmare. – So start to have a look at this. Start to have a look at your mind state.

See if you are pushing something away, if you’re not satisfied with something. Have a look at the dissatisfied mind. Sometimes it can lead to hatred, sometimes it can lead to anger, sometimes it can even lead to thoughts of violence. «If that guy bangs that dorm room door one more time….». You start to have thoughts like that.

So make a note that your mind starts judging, starts comparing, starts complaining, having negative experiences towards things. Take note of that. Step out of that looping mind state. Free yourself from it. Just make a little bit of effort, ‘comparing, judging, judging, dissatisfied, dissatisfied’ and step back from that.

Who is it who is dissatisfied? Who is complaining here? What’s going on? There is a mental state that is bouncing around inside your head. And you are identifying with it. Holding it, claiming it to be you. That of course causes you dukkha. If you can stop identifying with it, then it stops bouncing around. It disappears.

It only stays, if we’re identifying with it. Objects remain in the present, if we identify with them. When we don’t identify, they pass! They pass very quickly and they’re gone. And they come back again, and they are gone. Come back again, gone again. This is the power of awareness and wisdom. So try not to get stuck or caught in the story of your own aversions, of your own dissatisfactions, of your judgments.

The Buddha said, that this type of mind state, is like boiling water. You can’t see into the water. It’s boiling, it’s bubbling. So we need to turn off the gas. Allow the water to calm down and then we will be able to see into this particular mind state.

7.3. Third hindrance thīnamiddha

122 The third hindrance, that we all have been experiencing, is called thīnamiddha. It is normally translated as sloth and torpor, but because nobody knows what that means, we translate it as laziness and boredom.

This is the kind of mind state which comes to infect us, when we start to become «uuhf», lazy. We start to become bored of things. We can’t raise enough energy even to lift our head up. Our body is slump.

In sitting meditation, you think, «I’ll just sit here and pretend», waiting for the bell, waiting for lunchtime. Maybe the head’s on the wall. You started nodding away. Sleeping. Have a look if you have been infected by this kind of laziness energy.

It can be quite troubling. It starts as tiredness and then you start thinking about being tired. You start to feed it. You need to note it clearly, «oh, there is some tiredness occurring». Don’t continue thinking «I’m so tired, I want to sleep», «my meditation will go much better if I had a sleep now», «I will have a good sitting after lunch». Don’t start listening to this nonsense! There is some tiredness occurring. «I am so tired, I really need to sleep, my meditation will go much better if I sleep. I need 9 hours a day. I can’t function.» Have a look if your mind starts going into that.

Have a look if your mind starts having states of boredom. If you are not noting and knowing, of course, you will be experiencing some boredom. Who wants to sit in a hall for nine hours a day and not doing anything? Of course it’s boring, so you will need to start meditating! If you start to attach with states of boredom, what does it mean? «I am boring.» So you become a boring person if you start to identify with your mind states. There’s nothing boring here, but there maybe some boredom occurring in your mind. Please be aware of that. See it for what it is. See dullness, see the lethargy, see the flatness and the apathy.

If you started thinking in that way, if you started looping in that way, then you’re going to be causing yourself a lot of distress. You’re going to be getting yourself upset. You’re going to start freaking out. So stop it! Just stop it and have a look at the mind. Stop it from being slack and inactive. Start noting. Starting being aware of whatever physical posture you are in. Be aware of the rising and falling. Be aware of sounds and smells and sights. Be 123 aware of all the stuff that is going on.

In the beginning stages it might seem a bit boring to watch the breath, but once we start to connect with it, wow, you will see that it is anything but boring. In fact, it will become the most fascinating thing you have ever experienced once you connect with the breath, once your mind goes into the breath and becomes one with the breath truly able to follow it in the present moment. You will find that it is an extremely fascinating thing.

It’s just a matter of checking your attitude and then redirecting yourself to the practice. Directing yourself away from your looping, habitual thoughts of negativity. Just step out of that pattern that’s going on. Step out of it and start doing the practice! In that way you will be able to overcome that state of sleepiness, of sluggishness or boredom.

Practical things we can do to overcome sleepiness and tiredness include: take a shower, splash water on yourself, look up into the bright sky, fill your mind with light, pull your ears. In your walking meditation you can walk a bit faster for the first five minutes. Build up some momentum, build some energy up. If you’re creeping around super, super slow for 40 minutes, you may not be becoming invigorating enough, you may not have enough energy to keep noting.

If you are feeling tired in the sitting meditation, open your eyes. Or if you are feeling so tired that you’ve started nodding, just stand up and meditate and then sit down again. We are just transitioning between postures – meditation takes place in the mind. It is mind training. It doesn’t matter what posture your body is in. Traditionally we sit in the cross legged posture but it’s quite possible to meditate in chairs, to meditate while standing or walking. It’s even possible to meditate while we are lying down. So use all these postures and develop continuous awareness. This will help you to overcome the third hindrance.

When you’re becoming weary or slack, notice when the mind is tired. Vigorously note it when the mind is feeling tired until the point where it steps back and the tiredness is over there and your awareness and wisdom are over here. Two different things. Two completely separate things and you can choose whether you want to go into the tiredness or whether you want to stay in alertness. Tiredness just becomes another object. When we are not 124 in it, when we are not identifying with it, it’s not you that’s tired, there is tiredness! Start to view these hindrances through the prism of the four noble truths.

The four noble truths always start with «there is.. ». That’s the way the Buddha instructed us to see the four noble truths. There is suffering. There is tiredness. There is wanting. There is aversion. There is disliking. It is not you! But that is what is arising in the present moment right now. You can step away from that. Stop conditioning your mind with those states. Normally, we go into them and start conditioning the mind and then we’ll become those states. A craving person, an angry person or a lazy person. We keep fueling ourselves with this. We keep programming ourselves with these hindrances and then that’s what we become. So be very aware and very careful not to start indulging in these mental states when they are coming up and disturb our meditation.

The Buddha gives a simile of a pond, that’s covered by some green vegetation. Pond scum. When that stuff is growing on the water, you can’t see into the water. You can’t see the clear water of the pond. It’s temporarily covered. So just push away that pond scum.

Make a note: ‘tiredness, laziness, boredom’ is there. Make a note and let it go. It may take five or six notings, it may take 10 times to note for a particular mental state. In the initial stage we do it once or twice and it might disappear a little bit then it comes back. We note it again. And we know it again. We keep noting it. We keep hammering it away until it gets the idea: this is not mine, this I am not, this is not myself. We start to separate from the mental state.

If we stop identifying with these mental states, they loose all power. They loose their conditioning power. They loose their ability to act as a base or a foundation for the sense of self. Me, mine and I simply can’t arise when we are noting and knowing persistently in the present moment.

7.4. Fourth hindrance uddhachakukkucca

The fourth hindrance is known as uddhachakukkucca, which means restlessness and worry. This is the type of mind state that comes upon us, when we start to worry about things. We become restless about things. You 125 have all experienced this wandering mind. It’s wandering here, it’s wandering there. It’s unrest. It’s wanting something else. It’s desiring to anything. It wants to read something. It’s getting anxious about something. Maybe you’re starting to having withdrawals from information. We are all used to being bombarded with so much information. We haven’t got our devices or books with us. So the mind starts getting a little bit restless. It hasn’t got its normal toys to play with. So it’s becoming more and more restless.

Planning the future – it’s wandering. Thinking about what it’s going to be doing next week. Planning to make your life a success in someway. Maybe you are thinking about the past, long forgotten memories are coming up. You’re starting to play to go through old conversations. Recognize when the mind is wandering. Make a note ‘wandering, wandering, remembering, remembering, planning, planning’. Quite often we spend most of our time just wandering in thoughts in the future, planning things that will never come true. Just nonsense! Of course, you all need to make decisions at some point in your life and we can do that with wise attention. We can decide how we make our decisions wisely depending on what the causes or purposes of our motivation is. We can see which is the best decision to be made in that way. Become aware if you are having concern for outside things. If your mind is wandering to the outside. Maybe you’re becoming restless. Maybe you’re becoming upset. Maybe you are feeling guilty about something. Maybe you are experiencing some fear or maybe you are scared of something.

Be sure not to condition yourself with these kind of thoughts, sometimes irrational thoughts. We’ll get in all kind of phobias, all kinds of belief systems when we start to believe our own thoughts. We start to listen to these very impermanent, dependently arisen, conditioned thoughts that come up and pass away. They arise and pass away. Arise and pass away. We take them very seriously. We start to identify with them. Of course, they cause us much trouble.

Maybe you are worrying about the retreat. «I am trying hard, but it’s not working. I’m not going to get any results. I am hopeless. It is day 3 already and I am still not enlightened. What’s wrong?» You are used to achieving, setting your goals but it’s not working. Your expectations are not 126 fulfilled. You are becoming restless and upset or you are worrying about your meditation results. Maybe you’re worrying about what other people are going to think about you, when you tell them about your meditation results. All kinds of things that people worry about and get stressed about. No-one is interested in what your meditation is doing, except me. I’m of course very interested and hope that you’re along the path. But don’t think that you have to try and achieve something or get something by you or for you.

This can be big source of problems for people. They want so very much to get it. And then of course after two days of tiredness, it’s not working, you become upset. «It’s not working. This system doesn’t work. I have tried now.»

No! It is just like going to the supermarket and buying the ingredients and then say the cake does not work. But you have to make the cake first, you have to do the cooking. Buying the ingredients is not enough. You actually have to do some work. Vipassana is exactly the same. Just sitting on the mat with your eyes closed and waiting for some insight to fall from the heaven – it just does not happen like that! No! Insights are conditioned, it’s conditioned phenomena. You all need to put the conditions in place and we are all working towards that. The more efficiently and effectively you can line up all the conditions, that is when the magic starts to happen. If you are neglecting some particular condition, then start to work on that one. The things I have been saying, all need to be put into the actions. They are all conditions for the arising of insights.

The wandering mind can be very useful. It teaches us that things are out of control. It teaches us that thoughts just keep coming, they just keep arising. Meditation practice is not to stop the thinking. We are trying to observe it, to watch it and detach from it. You’re not interested in perpetuating the thinking. Don’t fuel it by thinking about it again and again. What happens when you do that? We all know! You become upset. When there is an object of resentment and then you keep thinking about it again and again, then you get yourself upset. This is how we become upset, through constantly thinking about something that we think is negative. If we get in a serious habit of that, then we get depression. Or, we end up with anxiety. We end up with some serious mental disorder, because of the thinking. It’s just thoughts! 127 There is nothing wrong with you, but no-one taught us to have a look at these thoughts before. Step back from them, they are not you. They don’t belong to you, nothing to do with you! It’s conditioned phenomena. If you identify with them, dukkha! If you don’t identify, freedom! So start to step back from your own mind, from the thoughts, the restlessness and worrying. Don’t follow the story. That is what this restlessness is all about. We haven’t been fast enough in noting the thoughts. A thought has come up and then it started blossoming into a story. And we started following along with that story. So try to note the thoughts before they start to turn into stories. Before they take you away for 10 minutes to another country, to another conversation with another person, and then you wake up when you hear the bell.

Knowing that we are thinking, that those five hindrances are within us is already a good start. We need to be able to recognize them, see when we are being attacked by them, and then step away from them. It is not good enough to recognize that they are there and then continue to allow them to keep going. We want to cut that behavior. It is not easy! Because our reaction patterns have become habitual, we have probably reacted in the same way for 20, 30 years. It has become a habit. So we are addicted to our reaction patterns. We think that is who we are. «I don’t like this, this, this and this.» It’s already been decided that these things are bad and need to be pushed away. So every time, when we encounter them, reaction. Dukkha. Reaction. Dukkha. Every time we come in contact with those things, dukkha. Try to step away from that position, even if you have been holding that position for a long time. Try to step away from your views, opinions. These views and opinions are just rooted in wrong view. They don’t belong to anybody. Don’t become a person that has become fixed in their wrong view. The older people get, the more and more they are fixed in the ways of doing things. «This is the exact way you need to make a cup of tea. First tea bag, then water, then milk.» If you put first the milk in, then they start reacting in this way. It’s just a simple habit that we got used to. And then we think the tea tastes somehow differently. They can get quite upset, and even not drink the cup of tea.

So have a look at those kinds of little patterns that we get ourselves into the trouble that these patterns make. Everything is up for auction in the 128 mind. All the mind states can be let go of! None of them belong to you. Get rid of it. Let it go. Let go of the thoughts and patterns. Free the mind from its tendency to be in a certain way.

The Buddha gives us a simile of wind whipped water. It’s like water out there on the ocean on a windy day. Lots of little white caps. You can’t see down to the sand. The surface of the water is uncalm. It’s disturbed.

7.5. Fifth hindrance vicikicchā

The fifth hindrance is known as skeptical doubt or vicikicchā or skepticism. It’s uncertainty, doubt in the mind. Sometimes we start experiencing doubt. We are unsure about the practice. We are hesitating. We are uncertain about what we are doing. Perhaps you are uncertain about the Buddha’s teaching. Maybe you’re not quite sure if the Buddha was correct or not. Maybe you are doubting about the meditation technique that we are teaching here. Maybe you’re having doubt about me as being a teacher. Maybe you’re having doubts about your own ability to do the practice. Maybe you’re having thoughts of low self-confidence. You’re doubting the practice and you are doubting yourself. You are switching between meditation techniques, sometimes at the nose, sometimes at the abdomen. «I do it this way then I do it that way.» The mind is not confident enough to fulfill the training. The faculty of confidence or faith, the faculty of saddha is weak.

You need to boost up that a little bit. You need to become confident with what we’re doing here. People have been doing this for a long time and experiencing the results. Your ability to put the instructions into practice will determine the results of your practice. You shouldn’t have any doubt about that. This is a conditioned, impersonal process. It has got nothing to do with you! We are putting in place various conditions and then it happens by itself. It’s beyond our control. So have no doubt about that! Just put the instructions in place!

Have a look at this mind state of doubt. It can really destroy your practice. If you start to think «this technique is hopeless», or «I can not do it, this is not what I want», you’ve tipped yourself out. You’ve fallen over. See if you are entertaining thoughts of doubt.

129 So these are the five hindrances. Sensual desire and ill will, laziness and boredom, restlessness and worry and skeptical doubt. These five hindrances will come and attack us in our meditation practice. Many things we do on this retreat are specifically designed to overcome these five hindrances. We are working on restraining our sense doors. We are restraining our food intake. We are keeping the eight precepts. If we have a look at the eight precepts, we will see that actually the sixth, seventh and eighth precepts are all about restraining the sense doors. We are restraining by eating food only in the morning. We are restraining the delight that can arise at the tongue door. We are not dancing, singing, listening to music. We are restraining the ear door and the body door in those activities. We are not watching shows, DVDs or films. So we are restraining the eye door. We are not using perfumes and flowers so that we can restrain the nose door. We are not sleeping on high and luxurious beds. So we’re restraining the body door.

This is a restraint mechanism so that we can practice. We need to restrain these five hindrances from arising and we need to restrain the sense doors so sensuality or sensual desire doesn’t start to arise. This is all to overcome the first hindrance of sensual desire.

We are practicing the loving kindness meditation as an antidote to anger or frustration or irritations so that we don’t have ill will and aversion in our mind.

We are being moderate in our eating taking just two meals a day. We are devoted to wakefulness, getting up very early and going to bed quite late. We’re devoted to being awake and alert while on the retreat here. This is so that we can overcome the third hindrance of laziness and boredom.

All the activities on the retreat here are to overcome something. They are an aid to us. So try to join in the restraints for your benefit!

We have a fixed schedule so we don’t need to worry about what to do. We are removing those kind of distractions of choosing where we can go or what we can do. There is no choice. We are just following along here. We are following the precepts that we don’t have to worry that our sila or morality or virtue isn’t at the right level for our meditation practice.

And of course, we are doing the chanting and bowing to develop faith and confidence in the Buddha’s teachings and the sangha. And we developed 130 a measure of confidence within ourselves as well. We gain a reflective acceptance of the teaching. We are listening to the talks, understanding, putting the practice into action. We are developing a measure of confidence and faith in the Buddha’s teaching.

Have a look at the translation on your chanting sheets. There are nine qualities of the Buddha, six qualities of the dhamma and nine qualities of the sangha that we can recollect. Buddhanusati, dhammanusati, sanghanusati. That word sati at the end means mindfulness. Mindfulness of the qualities of the Buddha, of the dhamma and the sangha. Start to appreciate the gloriousness of the Buddha’s teaching! Start to appreciate how deep and profound the dhamma is. And appreciate those people who have come across the teaching before us and have done the practice and have realized the results for themselves. They are the ones who have passed the knowledge down to us! So we can also come in touch with that teaching. Faith and confidence is as such developed to remove doubt.

It is important to know that these mind states are objects of our mediation. They are not just disturbances. Don’t think you can’t meditate because of the hindrances. They are the objects, the things we need to be watching. They are the things which cause troubles. That’s where the dukkha is coming from. These five hindrances. Sensual desire – not getting it, unhappy. Anger – getting it, not happy. When we are lazy and bored – not happy. When we are restless and agitated – we’re not happy. When we are doubting and lacking confidence – not happy. Dukkha is arising when we are entertaining these five hindrances. So you will need to note and know them and let them go. None of them are you! They don’t belong to you. If you identify with them, dukkha! If you can note, know and let them go, than you are free! You have freed the mind from them. And do it again! Train the mind to be free – that is all what our mediation practice is about. We are training the mind to be free in any situation! Whatever is arising in the present moment can be noted, known and let go of! All conditioned objects have the same structure. They all arise, get clung to, stop getting clung to, and pass away. Now, how long they stay, depends on how long you identify with that state. If you’re identifying with it strongly, then you will have all day this state of agitation. You pick it up in the morning and it will be disturbing you all the 131 way through to lunchtime until you find something else to be distracted by. But if you can note it quickly – dissolved! Very rapidly! And then a new object – and dissolved. Dissolved. Dissolved. If we can get our mind into a stable mode of perception, with awareness and wisdom continuously arising, noting, knowing every object – then we get ourselves into a state which is called udayabbaya ñāṇa, the knowledge of arising and passing away. We start to see all mental and physical phenomena arising and passing away very, very rapidly because nothing is being identified with. It is all being let go of! Very, very quickly. Until the mind drops. Until the objects stop passing away and the mind goes into cessation. It stops identifying with all the rapidly arising and passing away phenomena, that we have been able to note continuously – nothing getting identified with that state of mind, there is no sense of self arising, just conditioned phenomena until – whoop, this thing goes out, «wfuuh», like a candle that you put out with the wind of your hand, «wfuuh». It’s gone. The mind and body process ceases. It turns into cessation mode and things temporarily cease. Dukkha ceases. This is a little taste of the deathless. Not a full taste of nirvana but it is something quite close. And that is all within reach of our meditation retreat this week.

Don’t beat yourself up, if you find yourself under attack by the five hindrances. We are all. We all have to work through them. We just need to deal with them patiently, have tolerance. Don’t become tricked by the mind into becoming upset by your mind state. Have a look around you. It’s a so delightful environment here and the food is very good. All you need to do is to have a look at your mind and see what is really going on there. Don’t attach to these hindrances. Don’t pick them up when you notice that they are floating around. Our job is to note them, to know them and to let them go.