This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Tuning the Energy. Dharmette: Hindrances (3) Mindful with Dullness & Drowsiness. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Tuning the Energy; Dharmette: Hindrances (3) Mindful with Dullness & Drowsiness - Kodo Conlin

The following talk was given by Kodo Conlin at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 28, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Good to be with you.

Sometimes the five hindrances¹ are taught sequentially, as if one set out to meditate and first desire comes to visit. Since desire comes to visit and is met in a mindful way, then the varieties of aversion show up. And we do our best with them and soon enough they fade away. Just as soon as there's a next opening, the mind says something like, "Oh, nothing interesting here, no desire, no aversion, time to go to sleep." So, dullness and drowsiness. We'll talk a bit about that today, but let's get into meditation.

Guided Meditation: Tuning the Energy

Let's settle in right where we are, making some initial adjustments to the body.

Beginning by sensing into our support. Maybe it's the seat that's holding up our weight, the weight of this body. As we give over, the tensions start to relax, the bracing, the holding up. This body is held.

Now from a steadier base, lengthening the spine, maybe with a long inhale, long exhale.

Bringing some energy into the posture, lengthening the spine all the way through the back of the top of the head, and then relaxing into that length. When the body's at balance, muscles don't have to work so much.

So establishing our presence here. What do we find right now just as it is in the body and in the mind?

How is the clarity of attention, the clarity of the mind? As we notice what's here, how's the clarity of the mind?

As we check in with the breathing, check in with the body, relaxing any tensions.

Just briefly checking in, any emotion or mood in the background or the foreground, and any thinking, any thoughts.

Now thoroughly here, knowing the breathing, the body, emotions of thinking, some sense of how clear the mind is for now.

In what way can you sense the state of your energy? The state of your energy? Maybe it's up and buzzing. Maybe it just feels sufficient. Maybe it's low or lethargic. The whole spectrum, the whole range. Let's spend some time. How's the energy now? How do we know?

You might find that the energy is just a little too high or a little too low, such that the mind is agitated or murky. If the energy is too low, see if there's a way you can tune the energy, maybe applying even just five percent more energy or effort to the meditation and see what happens. Or if the energy is slightly too high and agitating, see if there's a way you can relax while sustaining the meditation, maybe sensing the relaxation of the outbreath, or sensing the stillness further in the body, deeper in the body.

Tuning the energy. With the energy just slightly tuned, is there any way that the mind, the body come into harmony, balance, clarity?

And tuning the energy. In this way, may a clarity and inner harmony arise, so that we can clearly know what's of true benefit for ourselves and for others and for the whole world.

Dharmette: Hindrances (3) Mindful with Dullness & Drowsiness

So again, welcome. It's our third morning on the topic of the five hindrances. As I said at the beginning, sometimes the hindrances are described in sequence. We've learned to meet sense desire in a mindful way. Then aversion, ill will, and hostility arises next. And we learn to meet it, be mindful of it, get to know it, understand its conditions, and it begins to fade. And then, maybe because of the habit energy of the mind, if there's nothing to desire and there's nothing to be hostile toward, the mind takes its third option, which is going to sleep. The third hindrance of the five is dullness and drowsiness, sometimes called sloth and torpor.²

So again in the descriptions of the path, coming to know and overcoming the hindrances precedes a unification of mind, and then the unification of mind sets the conditions for deeper and deeper states of letting go and liberation. And this is what allows all the more the heart to be free and to live peacefully in a wise and loving way.

So this third hindrance, I tend to think of the third hindrance, dullness and drowsiness, and the fourth hindrance, restlessness and remorse or restlessness and worry, kind of as a pair. So just in the way that the first two hindrances, sense desire and ill will, they're connected. The first two, they're connected and they're characterized by fixation of attention. Now sloth and torpor and restlessness and worry, what's the connection? It's our energy. One tends to come with too little energy, one tends to come with too much.

This theme of balancing the energy is illustrated in the Sona Sutta,³ this ancient text. The story is that the venerable Sona, a former musician, has gone into the monastic life and he's ardent about the practice. He's energetic. He's kind of pouring himself into the sitting and walking practice. Seemingly these are great conditions for a dedicated, immersive practice. And yet Sona is discouraged when we find him. Sona's been practicing so diligently, but he's not free. He's discouraged and he's considering giving all this up, giving up the practice, giving up the training.

The Buddha recognizes this and goes to question him. Knowing that Sona was a former musician, the Buddha says something like, "Sona, when you were a householder, were you skilled at playing the lute?" The lute, like the stringed instrument? Sona replies, "Yes, yes I was."

"So if you tuned the strings too tightly," the Buddha asked, "did the lute tune and play?"

"No. No, it didn't."

The Buddha goes on, "How about if you tune the strings too loosely, could the lute tune and play?"

Sona says, "No, no, it wouldn't."

So the Buddha goes on with his questioning. "So when you tune the strings neither too tightly nor too loosely, did the lute tune and play?"

"In the same way," the Buddha concludes, "Sona, an over-aroused energy, an over-aroused persistence leads to restlessness, and an overly slack persistence or energy leads to laziness. Thus, you should determine the right pitch for your energy and attune the pitch of the other faculties to pick up your theme."

It's a sweet metaphor, right? Coming into harmony, attuning the faculties to one's energy and tuning one's energy. That's what I call this principle, tuning our energy. And just as we might tune a guitar string or even adjust the dimmer on a light switch, or maybe some of us have those old oil lamps with the dials, we can learn how to tune our energy, how much energy we apply.

Now, when discussing energy, I think it's important to say that with so many demands so often on our energy from maybe it's activity, maybe it's overwork or responsibilities, at times very much so rest is the most appropriate way to tune the energy. At other times, it's exertion that's more appropriate. Think of when you have some vigorous exercise, let's say, and how your energy feels refreshed. There's no one right way to always tune the energy. So, we have to be attentive and we have to be responsive.

But just a few words about rest. Often at the beginning of retreats here at Insight Retreat Center, on the first night we encourage people to go to bed early and to nap on the first day. Sometimes when he's opening a retreat, Gil will say that so many are underslept that they actually need sleep more than they need meditation. So there's a time for rest. I think of the way we have this apple tree out here next to the fence, and the way that in the spring the bloom and the leaf out comes, and in the summer these tiny fruits develop, and then in the fall they ripen and the leaves change color. And we get to harvest them before the leaves shed off the tree, and then the tree goes into its winter dormancy. It's part of the whole cycle. It's like the tree draws its energy back into the trunk and into its roots to replenish so it can be fruitful. The same for us. There's this cycle of energy. Sometimes it's rest we need.

And then sometimes there's the overcoming of sloth and torpor, dullness and drowsiness, with the application of wholesome energy. In addition to getting some vigorous exercise, sometimes for me it's getting my to-do list organized, like knowing where my energy is headed. Or in meditation, bringing a sense of deliberateness. "Okay, I'm here to meditate for this long. I'm going to really give my attention over to this." It can be that simple.

But tuning our energy, right effort is of course one of the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path.⁴ And then just to give one more bit of teaching from the sutras about energy, we find this in the Samyutta Nikaya.⁵ It says, "Drowsy drowsiness, lethargy, lazy stretching, discontent, torpor after meals. Because of this, here among beings, the noble path does not appear." That's a strong statement. And there's the other half. "Drowsiness, lethargy, lazy stretching, discontent, torpor after meals. When one dispels this with energy, the noble path is cleared."

I like this language for the idea that the drowsiness or the dullness can somehow occlude or obstruct or hinder the path. It's worth considering. But again, because there's no one-size-fits-all tuning of the energy, working with sloth entails some trial and error and some mindful investigation.

So we do well to investigate. Say I'm experiencing sleepiness during meditation. Is this on account of a need for rest or is it something else? Some of the other things that might cause a sort of dullness or drowsiness in the meditation to arise: maybe there's something in my inner life that I don't want to see, and so my mind is putting me to sleep so I don't look at it. Maybe there's an emotion underneath that sleepiness. It's worth posing the question in the meditation if you're noticing dullness. It could be on account of some resistance or defensiveness towards some kind of inner challenge, or maybe it's weariness from chronic tension or chronic activity.

If sloth isn't a call for rest though, it can be really wise to meditate even with our sloth and torpor, even with our dullness and drowsiness, trying our best to sustain mindfulness even if we're nodding off in the meditation. These inner processes we're supporting by practice, they're so deep that we very well may be working something out that we can't see.

Here's the classic image, and this also describes part of what's so challenging about sloth and torpor. So here we are again, "When one dwells with a mind obsessed by sloth and torpor, overwhelmed by sloth and torpor, and one does not understand as it really is the escape from arisen sloth and torpor. On that occasion, one neither knows nor sees as it really is one's own good or the good of others or the good of both. Suppose there's a bowl of water covered over with water plants and algae. If a person with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he could neither know nor see it as it really is. So too when one dwells with a mind obsessed by sloth and torpor." So we can't see the reflection because there's algae in the water, like on an old fish tank.

So what does our mindfulness reveal for us when we investigate dullness and drowsiness? What can we come to know about what it feels like and what the story is? I wonder what language you would use. Here's a description from Bhante Gunaratana.⁶ He says that during meditation, it often happens that people struggle with greed and then ill will. Once these are overcome, there's a moment of peace, but then the mind falls asleep. Dullness and drowsiness come out of the fetter of ignorance. Dullness is sluggishness of mind, while drowsiness is physical languor. He says when we are feeling slothful or sleepy it's impossible to concentrate or to get any work done. It's also impossible to practice mindfulness or to meditate. I don't know if I want to say it's impossible. Maybe I will say it is difficult. But he goes on to say the hindrance of dullness and drowsiness is compared to being in prison. When you're in prison you don't know what's happening outside of the walls. In the same way when you allow the mind to sink into dullness or your body into drowsiness, you don't know what's happening around you or within you.

And then when we get more specific, what do we see with our mindfulness? What do we know with our mindfulness? And how do I know if this call for rest is wholesome or if it's the functioning of the hindrance? Maybe the difference is clarity of mind. Maybe one state involves craving or aversion and the other doesn't. Does one set of states leave me feeling nourished, like getting good rest the way you feel nourished, or does it leave me feeling all the more depleted? It's worth having a look.

But what about the breath when sloth and torpor come? For me it gets slight until I'm right at the edge of sleep, and then I get a really deep breath. Sometimes my ears will even still be functioning. I'll be in meditation, be right on that edge of sleep and here comes this really big breath. Oh, there I go.

What about in the body? Maybe something like a cozy numbness or sensations of heaviness. One practical remedy: sometimes this state can come on because the body is too warm. I remember in the early hours in the cold meditation hall at Abhayagiri when I was there I kept falling asleep, and the teacher advised me to take off one of my under layers. I was getting too warm. It worked.

Emotions. If sloth and torpor has persisted for a good while, you might ask yourself, is there any emotion underneath? Or for further reflection, if you weren't feeling drowsy, what would you be experiencing right now? See if anything comes up.

And then of course there's the story, "Oh, I am so quite tired. Oh, I didn't sleep last night. I should really abandon this meditation thing and go to bed." Joseph Goldstein has this way of saying that it's important to take care here because sleepiness can masquerade with the voice of compassion. He says, "I should really take it easy." Again, this takes some trial and error because sometimes that's true. We really need rest. But some of the wisdom, some of the art here is how to recognize if the "take it easy" message is coming from the need for rest or from sloth. And then the attention, is it clouded? Is it occluded? Is it covered over?

So, one of the effects of this hindrance is that it can seem all impossible to meditate. But my encouragement, hang in there. Hang in there.

Maybe as a way to close I'll mention that one of the things I've learned over time working with the hindrances in meditation is that there's something quite deep happening. There are occurrences of change that are happening through the practice that go beyond what my subjective experience at any one time. For example, I might think the meditation is just a total wash, I'm too sleepy, nothing good is happening here. But if I keep it up day after day, week after week, month after month, over time, the heart is still growing steady, growing open, and growing in the dharma. So, hang in there. Hang in there and get to know dullness and drowsiness with mindfulness.

And I'll see you back tomorrow for the fourth hindrance. Take good care.