This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Wanting and Not Wanting; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (1) Hindrance of Desire. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (1) Hindrance of Desire; Guided Meditation: Wanting and Not Wanting - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on February 26, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Wanting and Not Wanting

Hello, and happy Monday here in California at the Insight Meditation Center¹. We just finished the 25-part introduction to mindfulness meditation, and I have in mind to continue with that series, or part two of it. We'll start here with this meditation.

The simplest idea of mindfulness meditation is to be aware of what's happening as it's happening. Not to do a checklist approach, but to take the time to connect to whatever is predominant. To really know it well, and that can be over the course of one breath, or a few breaths, where we allow ourselves to feel, sense, and know what's happening. Sometimes it's panoramic, and just everything coming and going. Sometimes it's centering on something for a little bit, so there's a settling, a concentration there.

The breathing works this way, where we're centering ourselves on the inhale and the exhale—knowing the inhale and exhale, feeling it, and being with it. Sometimes it's body sensations, sometimes it's emotions, sometimes it's thoughts, sometimes it's sounds. As I recommended in the intro series, let the breathing be the default: the place where we're cultivating stability, in addition to being present for and mindful of everything.

One very useful thing to be aware of—as you're aware of anything, as you're aware of breathing, the body, emotions, or thoughts—is to recognize if there is any wanting of something, or wanting not-wanting something. The movements of wanting and not-wanting. Even in the middle of being aware of something, is there some subtle, or maybe not-so-subtle, wanting? Wanting a better breathing, wanting to get concentrated, wanting to be a good meditator. If there's an ache in the knee, is there a not-wanting?

The idea is to really take time to recognize that, to feel it. Do not be troubled by the wanting or not-wanting, but also do not give preference to it. Do not let it influence the simple moment-to-moment awareness. And how not to make it influence it is to include it as something to be known. Just simply to note—either note in the mind or just a non-verbal recognition—"this is wanting, wanting is present," and then continue to practice.

The wanting also is in the domain of everything. Sometimes wanting or not-wanting is kind of like the stage director who's off-stage, and the audience doesn't see what the stage director is telling people to do, but the stage director is somehow in charge. The idea is everyone's on stage, and so wanting and not-wanting is also brought on the stage so we can see it clearly.

So that's the instruction for today. To assume a meditation posture, and to gently close your eyes.

Sometimes wanting is useful. As you sit here and begin, see if you can bring forth a gentle wanting to be here present. To be at this place at this time, aware of your experience. To enter a deeper relationship with the present moment sitting here.

Gently taking some long, slow, deep breaths. Relaxing as you exhale. Relaxing the shoulders with a long exhale. Releasing the belly, and a long exhale.

Letting breathing return to normal, and continue to relax. Relax on the exhale, softening throughout the body. And then centering yourself on breathing, as if the breathing is the center of all things.

And then as you sit here meditating today, keep a lookout for the arising of desire, of wanting and not-wanting. Maybe each thing that you're aware of in the moment, check it out and see: is there any desire, wanting, or not-wanting in relationship to it? And if there is, know it clearly that desire is present. Know it in such a way that you are not caught in the desire. The desire is just a part of the landscape of your present moment experience.

What wanting or not-wanting is operating in the foreground, in the background? What is it like to know it clearly, instead of going along with it by thinking about it?

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, maybe take a moment to distinguish between different kinds of desires you might have in relationship to other people. There's the desire to want something from them, and there's also the desire to want something for them. It might be easier to see that the desire to want something from them serves yourself. Desire for them serves them. And the feeling of the two, the way these two operate in our bodies and minds and hearts, can be very different.

For the next couple of minutes, consider the desires you have for the well-being of others. How you wish them well. Where does that desire come from within you? How does that desire arise so that it has a healthy feeling to it, a goodness to it, a simplicity? That is a wishing, but not a needing. A desire, but not an attachment.

As you breathe, maybe breathing through your heart center, imagine that on your exhale you are spreading your well-wishing into the world. In front of you, behind you, to the side of you, in all directions.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may each of us, our well-wishing of others, be good for our own hearts. To have a healthy generosity of care for others. May all beings be happy. Thank you.

Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (1) Hindrance of Desire

So welcome to this Monday Dharma talk, which is now the beginning of part two of the introduction to mindfulness meditation. For this week, I would like to talk about the hindrances². There are five hindrances, and for people who do mindfulness meditation, one of the standard things to do is to become well-familiar with how the hindrances work in us. The value is that we want to understand what hinders our ability to be aware, to be mindful.

This is a wonderful principle: that the very thing that is the obstacle becomes the practice. Rather than letting it remain the obstacle that hinders awareness because we get pulled into trains of thoughts of the hindrances, we turn around and make the hindrances the object of the mindfulness. What's brilliant about that is that it doesn't require the hindrances to go away to reestablish mindfulness. We establish mindfulness on the very challenge we have.

This is one of the important principles of Vipassana³ practice in general. It is not an avoidant practice, but rather a practice that turns towards, that stands near, stands next to what's happening and is able to accompany it. To see it, to know it, without becoming it, without being entangled with it.

Rather than being upset when we can't be mindful, not being able to be mindful is just an indication that we need to turn our attention to something different than we have been paying attention to—to the very thing that's making it difficult. So if there's a lot of thinking, for example, that takes people away, then we want to practice mindfulness of thinking. But sometimes even that's not enough, and sometimes what's propelling the thinking, what's propelling our caught-up-ness, is some form of desire, some form of hindrance.

There are five hindrances. Desire is the first—more technically, it's sensual desire. The second is aversion: not wanting something, wanting something to go away. The third is usually translated as sloth and torpor, but it might be more appropriate to translate it as rigidity and torpor. And then there is restlessness and regret. And finally, there's doubt. So these are the five—seven actually, but two of them are pairs.

Desires are an important part of life. They are the very thing which trips us up in our lives; desires free us from trouble and desires put us in trouble. Desires are multifaceted, and beginning to recognize desires as desires is phenomenally helpful. If you can recognize the desires as desires, then you have a chance to feel and sense and experience what it's like having the desire.

Some desires, in and of themselves, feel like our freedom is compromised. It feels like we are caught in something, we're being compelled, being pushed. It's almost like we lose our self-determination because a desire overwhelms us, compelling us to act in a certain way. Other forms of desire do not limit our freedom or limit our capacity to stay grounded and centered here. It actually supports it. It supports us to be centered, supports us to be present, and the feeling of those desires can feel even nourishing. They can feel right. They can feel like they're part and parcel of a centered, grounded way of being alive and present.

The second desire is connected to mindfulness. What we're trying to do in mindfulness is to establish awareness here. The foundation of mindfulness, the foundation of awareness, is stability. Being here in a clear way, so that we're abiding, living in awareness—not living in and abiding in the desires, not abiding in the thoughts that we're having.

When thinking and desires get merged, we can be in trouble, because the mind gets swept away in thought, propelled by the desire. If there's a lot of attachment together with the desire, then the thinking can be compulsive. And when the thinking is compulsive, sometimes the behavior becomes compulsive too, because the pressure is so strong.

One of the things that happens with these compulsive desires and that compelled thinking is that we get caught in the hindrance of desire. As I said, it's often translated as the hindrance of sensual desire. Sometimes in the ancient texts, it's also described as the hindrance of acquisitiveness—wanting to have something, to acquire something for myself. Of course, it's okay to acquire things that are healthy for us, and when we acquire them in healthy ways. But it's the greed, the clinging, the grasping, the compulsion, the pushing that becomes the hindrance. It makes it difficult to be present, difficult to be centered here, difficult to stay aware, as opposed to being pulled away into the train cars of thinking over and over again.

What we want to be able to do is begin to recognize when desires are there. Desires are there a lot, so it shouldn't be too difficult to begin recognizing desires in the course of your daily life. You might stop a few times, maybe on the hour every hour, have some kind of alarm that goes off, and then say, "What desire am I involved in right now?"

If you find yourself in a supermarket, well, there is some desire that caught you there. You're looking for something to buy, you want something. Maybe every aisle you're on, you're looking for what you want, searching. There's nothing wrong with that, but what's the quality and the nature of that desire? If you really check in about how you're desiring, does it feel relaxed and easy? Does it feel nice and comfortable? Or is it tight and stressful to have it?

If you find yourself driving your car, what is the nature of desire there? If you're driving fast, does that tell you something about how you're living in your desires? If you're driving with a lot of impatience, that tells you something about the nature of your desires. If you are doing anything at all—if you're talking on the phone or answering an email—what desires are operating there? Does that desire you have feel good to have? Or when you really pay attention to it, is it stressful and strainful?

There are desires all the time, and you can get tied up in knots if you look at every desire carefully. But begin becoming cognizant of desires so that you can begin centering yourself on desires which are healthy, and you'll learn to recognize when they're not good for you or for other people. Because you learn to become familiar with them and you know well what they feel like, slowly you learn how to be free of desires. Ideally, we're free of both good desires and bad desires, healthy and unhealthy ones. It's possible to have clinging and grasping to healthy ones too, but we want to hold even the healthy ones lightly and present, acting on them if it's appropriate.

Sitting in meditation, one of the things to become aware of is the functioning of desire. Part of the reason to sit and become calm and centered and stable here is so that once we're stable, we're going to have a vantage point in which to feel, sense, or experience desires when they arise. We can see then, "Oh, now there's a wanting, there are thoughts." It's not just thinking going on, but thoughts driven by desire. Fantasies are usually thoughts driven by desires.

You might from the beginning just keep it very simple. Just recognizing, "Oh, there's a desire," as opposed to deciding exactly what the desire is. Maybe that can be for later, but see what kind of freedom comes from just really clearly recognizing, "This is a desire." I'm not proposing this to make your meditation busy with a lot of searching and looking and analyzing. But the idea is once you've arrived and are centered and stable here, you might want to be on the lookout. Keep an eye out for it.

Or it might be most useful before you become centered, because the very thing that's keeping you from getting into the present moment when you sit down is the spinning of your thoughts driven by some strong desire. It might be useful to sit down and see, "Oh, look at that. No wonder it's hard to be settled right now. There's a desire that's very compelling and compulsive that's still carrying with me." A desire to think something, or figure something out, or plan something. Planning is usually a desire.

I'll repeat this very important principle: the very thing that makes it difficult to be mindful, that's the thing to be mindful of. One of those things can be desire. And that's one of the key places in meditation where you want to check in and see, "Where's the desire here?" That is, when you're not able to be easily present, when the mind is drifting off a lot, then check in: what's the desire that's operating here? Clearly recognizing and knowing the desire, feeling it in your body, begins to loosen its grip on you, and maybe then it becomes easier to continue with your meditation.

Thank you very much, and we'll continue with the hindrances this week.