This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Confident in the Wholesome. Dharmette: Hindrances (5) Mindful with Uncertainty. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Confident in the Wholesome; Dharmette: Hindrances (5) Mindful with Uncertainty - Kodo Conlin

The following talk was given by Kodo Conlin at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 30, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Confident in the Wholesome

Oh, greetings. Hi, everyone. Great to be with you. We're getting reports from all over: Scotland, Oakland, Berkeley, Cambridge, Baja, close by in Mountain View. Oh, this is wonderful. Greetings.

Great to be together this week, reflecting on, exploring, practicing with the five hindrances. As we've said, the five hindrances are known as such because they're hindrances to concentration, to mindfulness, to wisdom. One of the effects of the hindrances is that they can have us lose connection with what's wholesome in the mind. We don't clearly see it. We don't know which way to go. And so we'll discuss the fifth hindrance, doubt, today. But I'd like to take some time in the meditation to actually appreciate all we've done this week and to orient us toward our own confidence in the practices that we've been doing.

So let's get started.

First, establishing our sitting posture. Starting with the base. Starting with our support. Sensing as we settle down into our support, onto our support from down low in the body. Balancing, stabilizing.

Now from a stable base, lengthening the spine all the way through the back of the top of the head. Big breath at the top and relax. Finding balance through the column of the spine. Letting the bones do the work.

Now with a relaxed sweep of the attention through the body, maybe from the top to the bottom, sensing for any tension that's extra, any holding that's extra. And can that holding be relaxed even just a little?

Well, staying connected to the sensing, even throughout the body as we breathe in, as we breathe out, I'm going to offer a few phrases. Nothing you need to do in response. Just let the phrases go in. See if they harmonize, resonate with anything in the body, in the mind.

First, mindfully aware here, harming no one. Confident in my virtue.

Next, sensing any hints of stillness. Confident in stillness. Sensing any hints of stillness. Confident in stillness.

Next, sensing the flow of change. Confident, what arises ceases. Sensing the flow of change, confident, what arises ceases.

And finally, awareness can be free with all things. Confident in awareness. Awareness can be free with all things. Confident in awareness.

As our sitting comes to a close, confident that mindfulness is an ethical act. Confident in stillness. Confident amidst the flow of change. Confident in awareness.

Through this, may what's wholesome in us grow and benefit all beings everywhere.

Dharmette: Hindrances (5) Mindful with Uncertainty

So welcome again. Hello. It's the fifth morning discussing the five hindrances—hindrances to concentration, to mindfulness, and to wisdom. And we've made our way to the fifth hindrance, doubt or skeptical doubt. The Pāli is vicikicchā¹.

And doubt, we know, places us at a fork in the road. It hinders our decision-making. You remember this? It's as if we're standing at a fork in the road looking down a path, kind of maybe squinting to see what might be there. And then the eyes flip to the other path. Oh, it's this way. Which way do I go? What do I do?

This tracks rather well with some of Gil's more recent talks in which he's calling this hindrance not doubt, but uncertainty. We don't know which way to choose. And this covering over the mind prevents our clear seeing. In a sense, we're paralyzed by a choice for a time.

So doubt. I think this must have been my preferred hindrance for years, especially off the cushion. I remember when I was in college, after changing my ideas about what to study a couple of times, I was reading and rereading and rereading and rereading the course catalog. [sighs] I knew I wanted meaningful livelihood that I found to be ethically inspiring, ethically sound, but I just could not choose what to do. In one of my off-the-cuff uncertainty moments, one mentor of mine rather forcefully said, "Decide." And that was all the advice that he gave. Thank you very much, benefactor.

So here's the classic image of this hindrance at work. This is a different translation that I've been using all week. We've been sharing Bhikkhu's translations, but this is Bhikkhu Sujato². So you get a different sense.

"Suppose there was a bowl of water that was cloudy, murky, and muddy, hidden in the darkness. Even a person with clear eyes checking their own reflection wouldn't truly know it or see it. In the same way, there's a time when your heart is overcome and mired in doubt and you don't truly understand the escape from doubt that has arisen. At that time, you don't truly know or see what is good for yourself, good for another, or good for both."

Can you relate?

So again, in support of our mindfulness, let's reflect together: what does doubt feel like? Maybe you can offer in the chat some of the sensations that arise in the body when this hindrance is present, when the mind is cloudy and murky and you can't decide. Maybe it's something like everything feels cloudy or unclear, maybe frozen because of the uncertainty, or this general diffuse, non-specific dis-ease. Maybe again with shallow breathing.

But how do we work with these sensations? As we've been doing all week, we bring our mindfulness. This is where our mindfulness can really shine. Right there. When we notice that doubt is present, we shift the attention. We recognize, "Oh, there's doubt in me." How's the breathing? How's the body? Helpful, of course, to name doubt as doubt. First turn to our breathing as we do in our mindfulness practice and attend gently but deliberately to the sensations in the body.

Oh, some of these are coming through. You have a feeling of doubt is bringing in heavy tightness like a clamp. That's a good metaphor. Silky lightheadedness, discomfort, agitation. Great. Great.

So when doubt is present, some kind of compelling sensation may well be there. And if that's so, we can move away from the breathing, get to know that sensation for as long as it lasts—the tightness, the freezing, the anxiety—and get specific, of course. And then as that fades, come back to our home base of the breathing body. It sounds like a long process, of course, to do this sort of movement of attention, but as you know, over time it can become quite quick.

A therapist once told me, "Never underestimate the power of the 5-second vacation." So even a little bit of awareness to move the attention onto the hindrance and back away can be powerful.

Uncertainty, doubt can certainly agitate the mind by focusing on an unknowable future. But the experience of the body is always present in this moment. So the guiding question can be, "What is it like now to be in a body that's doubting?" What's it like now to be in a body that's doubting?

And as you do this, you may notice shifts even right away. Relaxation, a little touch of confidence in the posture, a feeling of mental and physical nourishment might sneak in. And then there's a little bit of breathing room and clarity.

So you may imagine or recognize many of the ways that doubt shows up for you. And to help spark your imagination a bit, I'll say something about how uncertainty often comes in meditation itself.

This hindrance is pretty troublesome on the cushion because we get mixed up with how to proceed in the practice. "I don't know what to do. Is it time for a little breathing? Is it time for loving-kindness, mettā practice? Oh, maybe I'll do some noting practice or maybe I'll just feel the whole body." And we never settle on an approach, and so it doesn't get nourished.

This is part of the motivation of this direct, simple approach to applying mindfulness to the hindrances because we're always coming back to our home practice, to our core practice. Having that to rely on can help the doubt to not have such a strong influence.

If we have the presence of mind to inquire of our experience, "What is happening now? What's here now?" Then we're right back on track. "What's it like to be in this body now, while doubt is present?" You see how that's different from cycling through the content of our doubts, trying to figure out an unknowable future. We don't have to change this state in order to work with it.

So, what about the story? "I don't know what to do. I can't decide. What do I do?" I noticed this often makes its way for me off the cushion. Often when I'm, say, on vacation going to visit family or something and we're sitting around the dining table in the morning. Maybe you know the scene. It's that time of day when everyone's deciding, "What are we going to do today?" And the ideas start flowing. Okay, this is interesting. Now two ideas, three ideas. Okay, that's interesting. Oh, and then we get to five. And then we get to seven. And if I'm paying close attention, I might notice I'm getting a little uncomfortable. So many choices.

And if I keep very attentive as we all talk, I note a moment when the mind says, "Uh, nope, no more. I've hit my limit. I can't decide. You decide." Doubt's made its way in. It's as if this indecision slowly ramped up to the point where the mind wanted to turn away from present moment experience. And this too we can know with our mindfulness.

Because I've seen this pattern before, I know to check in with the body, check in with the breathing. What sensations are here? That familiar tension, that little bit of freezing, the mind growing still in a kind of way, but in a clouded way, not alert, shallow breathing. All these particulars we've been exploring throughout the week.

And again, this is a key point when we're working with all of the hindrances on or off the cushion. If we hang in there with them, if we hang in there mindfully with the experience, just attentive as best we can, then mindfulness is growing.

So, a few ways of cultivating the opposite and sustaining the practice throughout the day. I'll offer these in the form of some reflections, again from the book Unhindered.

What are the situations, the conditions, and the beliefs that are most likely to trigger doubt? What are some of the conditions you might put in place to support confidence and resolve? That's a question to carry with you throughout the day. Yeah. What are those situations, conditions, and beliefs that trigger doubt? And what can I do about that?

Because doubt is a hindrance that involves uncertainty about what's wholesome and what's unwholesome. This is the sutta definition of uncertainty, of doubt. You can't tell the wholesome from the unwholesome, so you don't know which way to go. Regular reflection about one's actions and their effects is a perfect remedy for this. It may take a good long while, but over time we grow wise about the influence of our actions.

We can also observe how doubt distances us from the present moment. And a remedy that can help denourish doubt is to keep returning to and resolve upon presence. And not only that, but enjoying being present. It is pleasant to be here sometimes. [snorts]

And then I'll say much of the work that we've done addressing the other four hindrances prepares us really well for meeting doubt. Mindfulness is all the more established, more sensitive. We may be getting much, much clearer messages from the body and from the mind. And we have this confidence.

Still, one more remedy is to reflect on some of the teachings you have confidence in, if there are some that you know and appreciate. And then within the practice, to make resolves that are doable. Instead of setting yourself up when you start a meditation to say, "Ah, it will be a failure unless I am with the breath every single breath for 30 minutes"—not achievable for most folks in most states—but to say, "I'm going to be present for the next three breaths." I can do that. And then succeeding in it helps build our confidence.

So uncertainty puts us at a fork in the road, and we know to turn to mindfulness, name doubt as doubt, and to breathe and observe and sense.

As this is the end of the series here, let's sum up by just a few words after the hindrances. Part of the aim of the teaching this week has been to make us more sensitive and attentive to how the hindrances get fed, the conditions that give rise to the hindrances, and then how giving attention through mindfulness feeds an alternative—feeds mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

And this is a really important point that I'd like to bring in right at the end of the series. We might get a sense—I see this often—folks start a meditation practice, it's going along okay, the hindrances come, and the thought naturally arises, "Oh, mindfulness isn't working. I need to do something else. This isn't working. I need a remedy." But it's totally possible, as we've talked about all week, we can employ the very same mindfulness practice in relationship to these hindrances and feed what's wholesome in us.

So in doing this practice, we take a few steps down this path toward a very inspiring possibility of a mind that's free from the hindrances. And even a first glimpse of this can be very inspiring. It's like, "Wow, I did not know the mind could be so still and settled and present. This is a beautiful mind. This is a radiant mind."

So I want to offer just a word of appreciation to all of you for being together this week, practicing together. I hope it has been supportive. It's certainly been inspiring for me. Wishing you well. May our minds be radiant. May we be confident in the practice. And may all beings benefit from this very wholesome work we're doing together.

Take good care.