This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Near Friends of the Five Hindrances. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Near Friends of the Five Hindrances - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 26, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Near Friends of the Five Hindrances

Hello everyone, nice to have you here. I'll begin this talk by evoking a simple, maybe obvious idea that our lives are often challenging. Being a human being is challenging in so many different ways—in small ways every day, and in big, existential ways sooner or later in life. How do we respond to those challenges?

There are two ways I'd like to suggest. One is a way that closes possibilities, where we narrow our focus and close down. The other way opens possibilities; we create more possibilities and remain open to things being different. One way closes our minds and our hearts; the other way opens them. One way marshals and supports more self-centeredness in the process, while the other supports a decrease in self-centeredness. There is some other way of being in the world that is much more satisfying than simply closing down.

The Five Hindrances and Their Near Friends

For the division between these two different ways, I want to talk about the Five Hindrances¹ and what I call their near opposites, or "near friends," to use a kind of Buddhist terminology. For those of you who don't know, the hindrances are very common teachings in the Insight tradition of Buddhism. If you want to develop the Insight practice that we teach, you are supposed to become an expert on the hindrances. These are considered to be some of the primary forces in the mind that you want to be mindful of because they are the forces that hinder mindfulness.

The principle is that the more you can become aware of what hinders your ability to be present in a clear, open way, the easier it is to be present. Rather than running away from the challenges, we want to be present for the very challenges of being present so that we can work through them, or not have them be such challenges to begin with.

The Five Hindrances are one of the primary strategies that people have to cope with human challenges in unuseful ways. It is helpful to see them as strategies rather than just innate facts of how we are. When we are challenged, we try to react to it. Then there are the opposites of the hindrances. There are many opposites, but what we can call the "near opposites" or the "near friends" are states that resemble the very problem we're addressing. They resemble the hindrances but are not the hindrances; they take us in the opposite direction.

It's easy to confuse the two, or to think that these near friends of the hindrances are also hindrances we're supposed to avoid. But if we can appreciate that there's something very closely related that actually has a very different effect on us, then maybe it's easier to slide over from the hindrance to the near friend. Or it's easier to just feel our way—maybe both are existing together sometimes—so we can find the beneficial one and avoid the one that is not so beneficial.

To give the simplest version of the list, the Five Hindrances are: sensual desire, ill will, rigidity (or sloth and torpor), restlessness, and doubt. Let's go into those a little bit more.

Sensual Desire and the Deep Request

The near friend of sensual desire is a healthy desire, a wish that I'll talk more about. There are healthy desires in Buddhism. Sometimes the popular idea of Buddhism is that it teaches that desires are the cause of suffering, and so you should get rid of all your desires. This is not possible, maybe not without becoming seriously psychologically troubled. There are healthy desires.

Sensual desire can be so strong sometimes that we can call it sensual hunger or thirsting for things. We know that some people are addicted to what could be called pleasures, and it comes at a huge cost to their lives, families, friends, and careers when the addictive approach takes over. But even way short of that, people can spend an inordinate amount of time attached to comfort, seeking comfort as solace when feeling stressed or challenged. They use comfort to not address the issue, but rather to get away from it.

One of my strategies in my life that doesn't serve me very well, I call the "ostrich approach." Sometimes when things are really challenging, I pull in, get really quiet, get involved in something else, and I just try not to notice the problem, as if it's going to go away. It doesn't work. [Laughter] So you never see me that way. Just, "Gil, you don't have to be an ostrich right now."

Comfort is one of those ways. Some people eat a lot, or binge-watch movies on Netflix or YouTube. People tell me, "I just binge-watched and I just feel awful. I stayed up late and it just drains my vitality." We spend too much time watching something on screens to avoid some kind of challenge.

The near friend of this is a healthy desire. In particular, one approach that I think is fascinating to think about I learned from Zen practice, and it has to do with "the request." In Zen, they ask the question: "What is the situation? What is being requested of me right now?" Rather than asserting oneself—"What do I want here? What do I need here?"—the question is, "What's the request of me from reality?"

Sometimes it was just a small thing, like if you wanted to put away your shoes. The question would be, "What's the request of the shoes? Or what's the request of the shoe rack?" That's a way of breaking through the feeling of "it doesn't matter" or "I'm just going to put it anywhere I damn well please." Actually, what's the request? You look at the shoe rack, you look at your shoes, you look at who's coming, and you say, "Well, if I put them over a little bit to the right, there's a little more space for more people who are coming." That's the request of the moment. What can we do that's beautiful? What shows a kind of mindfulness in what we're doing so that it spreads out from us to others, taking care of things in a way that supports other people to be present in a caring way?

It's interesting to do a sociological study of different cultures of Buddhism by looking at how they treat their shoes. It's fascinating. There are some places where the shoes are just fanned out in front of the entryway, and you have to step over them to get in. In other places, like in Japanese Zen Buddhism, it is so orderly. It was really valuable for me when I practiced Japanese Zen to learn to delight in how I put my shoes on the shoe rack. It was like, "Oh, do this with care. This is important," as opposed to, "I have more important things to do than put my shoes on the shoe rack." In Zen, everything is important. You learn this kind of presence: "Okay, what's the request here?"

To turn that around, you can also ask: "What is your request of reality?" Rather than what your immediate desire is, what is your heart's request? Is there something you really want right now? I love language, words, and etymology. The word request. The spiritual quest. What is your life's quest? What's your spiritual quest? And now, what is the re-quest? What's the deeper quest here in this situation now? What do you really most want from the situation, as opposed to a sensual desire?

If we have a desire for comfort food and we stand in front of the cabinets or the refrigerator, stop and ask: "What's the request right now? What is my deeper quest? How does what I'm doing right now tie into the deeper purpose that I have for my life? What's my heart's deeper request than simply comfort?" If you take that time and ask that question, maybe you'll see there's a different desire. I've done that sometimes and said, "Oh, I don't need to do this. It would be nice to meditate right now," because that's a deep request that really taps into something very deep inside, with a deeper sense of integrity than just having more chips. So the near friend of sensual desire is this deeper desire, the quest.

Ill Will and Healthy Avoiding

Then there is ill will. In some schools of Buddhism, aversion always has a quality of hostility in it, even though it can be quite mild annoyance with things. This always closes down the heart and closes the mind. It's always a reinforcement of self-centeredness.

Many people immediately go to goodwill as the opposite, but that's kind of like the far opposite. The near opposite of it is to avoid. Some people say "aversion," but there is healthy averting. One Buddhist teacher I know in America complained to us, "You guys are using the word aversion, but aversion is good sometimes." I argued back and said, "No, in English, the way we use the word aversion is always negative; it's a kind of hostility where you don't like something and you're pushing it away." He said, "No, no, it just means to turn away. In Latin, it means to turn away." So you avert yourself sometimes in a good way. So there's ill will, and then there is healthy avoiding of things that doesn't involve any hostility.

For example, you might avoid the tendency to be hostile. If you feel you have ill will towards whoever comes along, you might say, "You know, I think I'm going to be careful today. Maybe I'll go for a walk around the block before I go to this meeting where I'm just angry at everyone." You are averting, avoiding how you're feeling, not just going along like usual, and trying to find another way that's not hostile. There is a healthy way of saying, "Not this, not now. Let me stop doing this. Let me turn away from this kind of thing."

Some of us do that regularly in meditation. We're sitting here meditating, and after a while, you're tracking what you're thinking about—distracted thoughts. You say, "I don't need to think about that anymore. This is not the time and place for this." There can be hostility to that; you can get angry with yourself for having one more distracted thought. But that doesn't help. That creates more self-centeredness because it's about me not liking something, me doing the wrong thing.

If instead you say, "You know, this is not useful. What is the request now? The request is to open up in some deep way to my experience here and now. For that purpose, let me stop thinking about these things. Let me avert my attention from those thoughts to being here with this deeper intention." This is where the first thing—this deeper desire—comes back over and over again to support us. If we know we have a deeper quest for what our life is about, then it's easier to avert from things that don't serve us.

Sloth, Torpor, and Relaxation

The third hindrance is classically described as sloth and torpor². Some people love this word "sloth." I noticed that because I came up with a different translation for the original Pali word, but some people protested. I guess "sloth" is cute, or they like to do things slowly. The sloths are inspiring for people who are always hectic and running around! [Laughter] So you're welcome to keep "sloth" if you're one of those people.

But whatever it is, these are ways of shutting down. They are ways of resistance. There's a challenge, and we shut down. We're not open to being present. We're not vitalized and engaged. It's classic for children to do this if they don't like what's going on: "Oh, I'm so tired." And it's amazing how quickly they can switch that over to be fully energized. In a moment's notice, all you have to do is say "ice cream," and they have all the energy they need. Adults do this too as a strategy. Sometimes if we're overwhelmed, if we're deeply bored, or if our self-centeredness is not being supported, there's a shutting down, a quieting down, a closing down that goes on.

In the extreme version, the classic Pali word is middha³, which is literally translated as rigidity. This works really well for one of the ways we shut down based on fear: the freeze instinct. This is one of the really great challenges for people who go around with chronic, built-up anxiety; they shut down and freeze in certain situations. It isn't necessarily because a mountain lion has come in.

One of the earliest memories I have of really freezing and disassociating in fear was my freshman year in college. Everyone in the English class was required to go see the professor alone in office hours. For me, that was so intimidating. I remember going in there and sitting opposite the professor, and I had such a complete feeling of disappearing. I wondered, "Is this person looking at the wall?" because I wasn't there. That's the last thing I was aware of before I realized I was walking down the hallway. What happened between wondering why this person was looking at the wall and walking down the hallway? I have no idea. I just disassociated. It was because being in front of this authority figure when I was 18 was so anxiety-producing for me. This freezing, this rigidity that goes on, is not healthy for us because all kinds of terrible things can happen in that disassociated, rigid state.

Then there's also lethargy. This is the kids' strategy: "Oh, it's so hard, I'm so tired." We get heavy and resistant by being tired and sleepy. Not a few people end up sleeping in meditation. One of the reasons for that is because there's too much difficult material coming up. Strong emotions begin opening up. Meditation is not a straight route to becoming calm and happy. Meditation is a straight route to discovering and meeting yourself. That's not always good news, but it is real news. If you really want to meet yourself in a productive and useful way, mindfulness is the way to do that.

The benefit of that is if you really meet yourself deeply, even in the most challenging things, you can ask in the middle of it: "What's the request here? What's being requested of me in these challenges? What is my heart's request?" When you have deep fear, deep anger, deep grief, or deep sadness, what is the deepest request?

I can easily sit on a couch slouching in such a way that it actually begins draining my energy. I am also capable of sitting away from the backrest, sitting upright, and I can feel there's more energy here. I feel more alive and good. How do you walk? I can easily walk kind of feeling sorry for myself, slow and heavy, and it doesn't feel good. I could also pick up the pace, and it feels like, "Oh, now I'm engaged nicely." There's a sense of engagement and vitality. It doesn't take much to shift a little bit to choose where the vitality is.

This can be a great antidote to... wait, no, I'm confusing the pairings! I'm so sorry to tell you this, I'm confusing the pairings. [Laughter] The near friend of lethargy and rigidity is actually rest and relaxation. What needs to be rested and relaxed right here? Both of them involve a stillness, a quieting, but there's a healthy one and an unhealthy one.

Restlessness, Remorse, and Vitality

Now we get to the other one: restlessness and remorse (or regret). They both have the effect of creating agitation, which is why they're grouped together here. We can become so agitated for all kinds of reasons. Through frustration, unfulfilled desires, or unexpressed hostility that we just don't know what to do with. We can be restless because we have a lot of self-remorse, self-criticism, and uncertainty about ourselves. We can be agitated because of what we've done: "Will people find out? Will we be blamed? Will people not like us?" The agitation we live with can be anxiety-producing.

The near friend of this kind of agitation is a healthy vitality. There is a kind of strong energy that we can live with that I call vitality, or feeling physically enlivened. I am proposing that we can do a lot of small things throughout the day, choosing how to be present for something in an enlivening way.

If you're standing in line at a supermarket, you might just stand there and judge what other people are buying, or how quickly the clerk is doing the checkout, or look at the magazines and think, "I want chocolate." That's one option. But what would a nice, clear sense of physical vitality feel like standing there? If I stand on both feet, if I face a certain way, maybe I don't need to be looking at everything around me and losing track of myself. Maybe I can stand up a little bit stronger, a little bit straighter. It's not that anyone has to notice dramatically, but there's vitality, there's presence, there's attention.

Ask yourself the question while you're looking at the National Enquirer: "What is your heart's deepest request?" You'll probably bat that question away! But ask the question, "What is my deepest request?" when you're standing upright, straight, and present in a nice way, and you might get a deep answer right there in the supermarket. Who would have believed it?

Doubt and Inquisitiveness

And then we come to the last hindrance: doubt. Remember, doubt as a hindrance is always something which closes us down. It always involves some kind of narrowing of attention, a narrowing of possibilities. It involves uncertainty, indecisiveness, and confusion about what to do.

The near friend that can look like that is healthy doubt, healthy questioning, and inquisitiveness. "What's going on here? Let me take a deeper look here. Let me find out what's happening. I'm unsure what this is about, I'm unsure what I want, but let's reflect on this and consider."

And then you can ask the question again: "Given my heart's deepest request, what perspective does that give on what I have doubts or uncertainty about? Does that offer some clarity?" One of the clarities about the "deepest request" question is that you might not have an answer to what you're uncertain about, but you might have some answer about how you want to be in relationship to it. You want to be in relationship to the challenge with presence, with attention, with uprightness. Turning towards the challenge you have rather than being pushed around by or caught up in the agitation of doubt, uncertainty, and indecisiveness.

Choosing How to Show Up

In this mindfulness practice, a lot of it comes down to how you want to show up for your life. How do you want to be present? What kind of attention do you want to bring to whatever you're doing? Every time we're involved in something challenging, ask: "How do I want to be now with this challenge?"

All too often, we have some serious challenge and the old operating principles kick in. The habits kick in. I want to look for something pleasant instead. I want to blame someone. I want to shut down. I run around like a chicken without its head, or I'm filled with indecisiveness. These are all optional. We don't have to believe these hindrances. We don't have to prioritize them or think that it's true to be this way, because they all represent responses that close down the range of possibilities we have. If we have a smaller range of possibilities available, that can make the whole thing even more challenging and can reinforce the very strength of the hindrances.

But if we can come into a way of being that opens up the field of possibilities, that can give us a lot more confidence and a lot more creativity to move in a different direction. One of the ways we do that with mindfulness practice is how we show up, asking the question: "What is the request here? The request of the situation? The request of my heart? What's the deeper request that I have?"

What is it that would be healthy to stop doing so I can know better what is healthy to do? What is it that needs to relax here? Maybe it's ill will, or the tension of sensual desire. What is it that needs to rest? Rest and relaxation are an important part of human life, and a lot of people in our culture don't get enough.

In what way do I want to be vitalized, to be enlivened by this life? To show up in a way that I feel energized in a good way? I don't know what to do, the situation is difficult, but at least I'm sitting in a way that feels lively. I'm not going to give up my uprightness, my sense of vitality, which we often give up subconsciously. We don't even know we're doing it. "Oh, the computer is not working! Not again! I don't know how it works..." I don't even know that I'm doing it. But you can catch it: "Look, the computer's not working. I'm being given another opportunity to sit up straight!" [Laughter]

What is the inquisitiveness, the curiosity, the questioning we can have that opens the field? One question for that is: "What am I not seeing here? What am I overlooking? I don't know what's happening here, I don't know what to decide to do, but am I missing something? Are there more possibilities here?"

The hindrances are an important part of our practice. As we study them and get to know them in our practice, we can also know we have these states that look like them—that I'm calling the near friends—that are the opposite ways of being. They make the whole study of the hindrances more interesting by having something close by that can offer you an alternative. Maybe the hegemony of the hindrances is decreased a little bit.

Next time you find yourself in a personal challenge, take the opportunity to pause and ask yourself which hindrance is operating here, and what alternative there is, rather than living with this hindrance operating and interfering with all the possible ways of responding.

Thank you. Those are my thoughts on this topic.

Announcements

We do have the potluck lunch today. It usually happens on the last Sunday of the month. We have about eight minutes before the usual time we end, so everyone is welcome to stay for the potluck, whether you brought something or not. It's just a nice excuse to hang out with each other, so don't feel like you had to have brought something.

There are tables set up here and outside as well. Because it's a potluck, it's nice to meet people and say hello, especially if you've never been here. If you're willing to stay for a few minutes—you're welcome to leave if you prefer—just turn to the one or two people next to you. Look around, make sure no one's left out, say hello, and introduce yourself. Maybe share one or two things that were interesting for you from this talk with your new friend. In about five minutes, there will probably be a bell for the potluck. Thank you.