What Stands In The Way Of Your Peace

Thank you for taking the time to be here and be present.

This is an important practice for yourself and for the world at large who need you to be the best version of yourself that you can be to come to the responses of the world from a place of wisdom,

Of equanimity,

Of kindness,

Especially when that is difficult.

So thank you for sitting with me and everyone else listening to this.

If you are alone,

You could imagine that the others listening to this recording are in a room with you,

In sangha with you,

In your community of practitioners.

In this meditation,

In this short meditation and talk,

I invite you to concentrate on the incoming sensation of my voice,

Of the sound waves entering your ear and being transcripted by your mind and your brain into something that may conjure visions,

May conjure understandings.

It's a good opportunity to practice concentration on something that the mind will more easily ready energy towards.

However,

Let's start by getting in a comfortable position that may be sitting,

That may be lying.

It can be helpful to sit cross-legged with your back straight.

The reason for this is that it conjures right energy.

It conjures energy to the practice,

Keeps your mind sharp,

Which we'll talk about in a moment with one of the hindrances to a clear mind being laziness and lethargy.

Take a few moments to settle into your position.

Make sure your back is upright but comfortable.

There's tension somewhere.

Wisely give yourself the opportunity to move a little bit to find that position that you may be able to sit in for the next 15 minutes or so.

Now let's begin by taking a few deep breaths.

In and out.

Noticing the sensations that the breath causes.

In and out.

Where does the breath begin?

Where does it end?

Can you follow it through with your concentration,

With your attention?

If your mind wanders,

All of our minds do this.

This is normal.

This is okay.

Simply bring your attention back to the present.

Bring your attention back to the sensation of your breath,

The sound of my voice,

The pressure of your legs or body on the floor or cushion beneath you.

Can you feel the flow of air,

Hot or cold,

On your skin that is exposed on your face or arms or hand?

These are all good opportunities to return to the present.

Be kind to yourself as your mind might wander as this is a normal part of practice.

As many times as it takes,

Just come back to the present.

Come back to those sensations as an anchor.

I'd like to give you a few moments of silence to focus on those sensations,

Focus on the breath,

Find yourself present and come into a calm state of being.

And as your breath begins to slow,

Loosen up the requirement of managing your breath.

Just allow it to flow naturally and watch as it does.

Now I'd like to call your attention back to my voice as we discuss some of the most common states of mind.

You might even call them objects themselves in the mind that cause suffering,

But you can also think of it as they muddy the water of a clear mind.

When your mind is clear and seeing the world as it is,

Feeling calm and connected and coming from a state of equanimity,

These hindrances,

As Buddhism calls them,

Will have subsided.

At a true state of liberation,

You will have found the absolute roots of these hindrances and made it so that they are unlikely to return.

But for most of us,

They are ever-present and in different stages of intensity.

Sometimes they will be very obvious.

You'll be overwhelmed with the sensation and the experience of one of these hindrances.

In other times,

And somewhat more challenging,

They will be much more subtle.

And it takes a little bit of practice or a lot of practice to start to recognize them in those subtle forms.

In my experience,

At least,

Almost all things that seem to occupy my mind that are not wholesome,

That are not fulfilling my path of being more present and kind and connected with the world around me,

The things that separate me and make me feel as a separate being,

They all arise from one of these five hindrances.

It may take a while to see how that is so,

But as I talk about each one,

Scan your own mind currently to see if any of these are currently present in a subtle way or an extreme way.

I'm going to do these out of order because a lot of people have heard these many times and it may kind of skate right through the mind if you kind of hear them in the typical order.

The other challenge that I want to talk about is apathy,

Laziness,

Sometimes called sloth and topper.

The challenge here is that this hindrance will find ways to interject itself and get in the way of practice,

Get in the way of being alive,

Bright,

Present.

It dulls the mind.

In its most extreme circumstances,

This can show up as depression,

Which I've worked through quite intensely myself.

And in its more subtle form,

It may come up in as a dullness that seems to be appropriate,

Seems to be this calm feeling.

It may be mistaken for calm abiding,

Which is this wholesome quality of mind where things are calm and centered so that you can appropriately focus your energy on concentration and meditation.

The tricky part about this more subtle version,

And I would invite you to examine if you're currently experiencing any amount of this,

Is that it seems calm,

But it really is closer to a shutting off of the mind.

You'll notice the difference between whether you seem to be able to easily muster and move around the energy of your concentration or if there just seems to be an emptiness that borders on falling asleep.

There's a lot there,

And maybe someday we can explore each of these in more depth,

But I just wanted to share these.

The antidote to sloth and topper,

Laziness and empathy,

There are many antidotes.

There are many ways to counteract this hindrance.

One way is to practice with your eyes open,

Soften your vision by allowing yourself to welcome in your peripheral vision,

Not just a centered point of focus.

It can be to simply muster effort and energy towards a sensation that the mustering of that energy or of that effort will bring energy along with it.

It can be sitting upright rather than laying down,

And it can be reflecting on why you are practicing so that you have right motivation.

There are many other practices that can help.

Walking meditation,

For example,

You'll have to experiment with some of those yourselves if you find this particularly challenging.

Another of the hindrances is restlessness and worry.

Again,

This can appear as very intense or subtle,

And in its most intense form,

I think we've all experienced this anxiety of the mind racing,

Potentially worrying and worrying about extreme things,

But sometimes on a more subtle level,

Which again can sometimes be more challenging because of how subtle it is.

Worry appears as first restlessness,

Where there's some kind of unbound,

Unintentionally energy.

For me,

It often shows up in the chest.

It feels kind of like a buzzing,

A moving.

Some deep,

Calm breaths,

Some calm abiding practice can be a good antidote to this,

But examining it closer,

What I've found is that often it always extends from worry,

Even in the most subtle way,

Worrying that,

Am I really using this time right now appropriately?

Am I going to do the next thing when I get up?

Am I going to eat?

Am I going to walk my dog?

Am I going to do the right thing?

Thinking about all of the potential options of any given moment,

And how will I choose the right one?

This is a particularly challenging hindrance because it sometimes doesn't seem like it's there when it's not obvious,

And when it is obvious,

It can be very challenging to battle.

And usually I like to encourage a sense of ease,

But in the case of restlessness,

Sometimes a sense of ease can be achieved by applying strong effort and just bringing yourself back to the present,

Picking a sensation,

Maybe the breath,

Maybe the pressure of the floor against your body,

The wind touching your skin,

Pick one of these and bring your attention to it and hold your attention there.

And if your attention wanders,

Which it likely will do,

Especially if you're restless,

You'll probably have a lot of rumination,

A lot of mind,

Thoughts,

Wandering,

Just put a lot of effort into coming back to that present moment and do it as long as you can.

And eventually it gets easier.

It's like working a muscle.

Another of the hindrances is doubt,

Which is I think closely related to both laziness and restlessness.

Doubt in the practice,

Doubt that the thing that you're spending your time doing right this second is really as valuable as it truly is.

And you have to decide this for yourself.

I don't believe that faith comes mandated from anything but yourself.

And how do you reflect on the opposite of doubt,

Which is faith?

How do you build that faith without just being simply told that this is what you should believe?

This is a path that I'm sure many people,

If you're sitting here,

Have told you,

And perhaps you've seen yourself the benefits of this path.

But sometimes it's not as clear that the benefit is coming.

There's often a huge surge of excitement and calm and benefit early on in the practice,

And then it can wane.

And that is when doubt really finds its footing.

Again,

I invite you to examine,

Do you have doubt?

Are you at any moment in this talk or any others that you might listen to?

Are you wondering,

Is this really the path for me?

Can this really liberate me from suffering?

Do I really understand and believe that suffering exists?

Do I really believe that it is possible that it doesn't?

It can be helpful to meditate on times in the path where you have had an experience before,

Maybe even not through meditation practice,

Maybe some other practice where you've experienced some rapture,

Some sense of losing yourself in the moment,

Melding into the universe.

The glimpse that you might have gotten into what it is like to be truly present,

What it is like to be absent from worry,

Absent from suffering of all forms,

To truly be in love with the world around you and all living things,

And to not feel attached to being your current version of your living self to experience that love.

And if you haven't had those experiences yourself,

That's okay too.

Try to find a vision of the Buddha or Dalai Lama,

Some teacher that maybe you've seen or read about,

And reflect on the qualities of that individual.

If you believe that that individual is liberated from suffering or close to it,

Then that should inspire faith that this is a practice that is worth the time,

The effort,

The energy.

Certainly it can be more worthwhile than,

I don't know,

A plethora of things that you could do with your time,

But that's up to you to decide.

I was going to joke about the fact that myself used to watch hours and hours of Netflix and then realized I could be reading about the Dharma and I could be meditating and practicing kindness and practicing awareness and concentration,

And at first that was really challenging because it was much more boring for my mind.

But then it became much more exciting as I started to progress,

And now it seems as almost a no-brainer,

If you'll let me use that phrase.

The other two that are most commonly the first two that people pay attention to are sense,

Desire,

Craving,

And ill will or aversion.

So let's start with the sense,

Desire,

And craving.

The desire for anything.

And again,

In its most extreme circumstances,

This can show up like addiction where you feel you need this thing or this experience to feel whole,

Complete.

There's something,

A sense of lack that all humans,

Potentially most living things,

Deal with.

Humans seem to suffer with it the most.

I don't know,

My dog seems to suffer with it quite a bit whenever he smells food and he isn't getting any.

The nuanced version of desire is much trickier to deal with.

Both are actually very tricky to deal with,

But the more nuanced version of desire can simply be wanting something to be different than it is,

Wanting a different future,

Different present,

Desiring something.

And even on the path,

There can be a clinging to a desire for a specific outcome,

Envisioning what liberation will be like,

Envisioning what practice should be like,

And desiring it to be like that.

And at times,

It may not feel like what you expect it to.

And there can be this clinging to the desire of that existing in a way that your mind has imagined,

And not truly seeing the world in the moment as it is,

And being present and at peace with that.

An ill will,

Aversion is kind of the other side of the same coin of desire.

Desire is really,

Since desire is really wanting something that is going to feel pleasurable.

Ill will and aversion is not wanting something that doesn't feel pleasurable.

And that might be towards a person.

Often this is reflected as towards a person.

The interesting thing is that these hindrances,

All of them,

Are almost as if you can imagine them as if they are living things inside your mind that are separate from you,

Which if you reflect enough,

You may discover that pinning down what you is,

Is a little tricky.

So all things may be separate,

And at the same time,

The same and part of the same.

But they are aspects,

And they have their own accord beyond your core volition.

Ill will will always look for an opportunity to find hate,

Disgust,

Anger towards another,

Towards the outside,

Or towards the self.

So if you're sitting in a meditation group,

Or maybe you're around others,

Maybe your neighbor upstairs is being very loud,

Those are opportunities to practice with these hindrances and see them as they truly are.

Perhaps,

Perhaps there is harm being caused by another,

And it can be wise to examine that and examine your relationship to that.

But is you suffering with this aversion and hatred towards another going to help improve that?

The antidote to ill will and aversion and hatred is metta,

Which is the loving kindness practice,

Compassion.

It can't be understated how important the meditations on compassion are.

And the desires,

The central desires,

Meditating on impermanence,

The fact that once you achieve something it is temporary,

Everything is temporary and always changing,

And even the desire itself is temporary and always changing.

So if you simply sit with the desire,

In my experience often if I am feeling a sense desire,

If I sit with it,

It's incredible how quickly it will pass.

And then it's funny almost how my mind felt it absolutely needed that cup of coffee,

Or that dessert,

Or to flirt with that woman,

Or whatever it may be.

But it doesn't need that.

There's a difference here between,

This is why Buddhism is called the middle path,

Is because there's a difference between indulging those sense desires and harming one's self.

The goal is not to harm one's self.

You still should eat.

You still should take care of yourself,

Take care of those around you.

If you're in relationship you still should participate in that relationship.

But it's just learning to see the way that those hindrances and those thoughts and those desires,

How are those truly being?

How do they act in your mind and on your mind?

I'm going to give you some time here at the end to quietly consider which of these hindrances are most present to you right now.

And sometimes it can be helpful to take these out in your everyday life beyond just sitting and examine and just note when one's present.

Oh,

There's desire.

Interesting.

Oh,

There's ill will.

Oh,

There's apathy.

Oh,

There's restlessness.

There's doubt.

But right now let's see if we can find which of these are most present and sit with it.

Practice maybe one of the antidotes,

But really just examine what does it feel like?

Does it show up as a sensation in the body?

Like I described,

Restlessness showing up as an energy,

A tension,

A speeding up of the heart.

It's up to you to find what that experience is specifically for you,

But try to find it and reflect on that for a few moments.

Again,

I'd like to thank you for sitting here with me,

For taking this time.

I cannot express enough how grateful I am that you are taking consideration of this path and putting the effort in to move towards a higher version of yourself,

If you would call it that,

A more kind,

A more peaceful version of yourself so that we may become a more kind and more peaceful version of ourselves.

In your own time,

Open your eyes,

Move around a little bit or just sit in silence for a little bit longer.

I invite you to continue to examine these hindrances as the time goes on and practice those antidotes,

Learn them so that you can easily call them in your mind and note what is currently being experienced.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.