Obstacles

So,

This morning I'd like to start by sharing a story that I read just yesterday that coincides beautifully with today's topic.

There was a Russian spiritual teacher in the 1800s by the name of George Gergev.

And in his spiritual community at that time there was this old man who was really difficult to live with.

He was argumentative,

Obnoxious,

Noisy,

He smelled,

And he was an all-around troublemaker.

So after many months of conflict with the other community members,

This old man just gave up and decided to leave and return to Paris.

And when Gergev heard about this,

He was upset and he went directly to Paris and found the man and with great effort convinced him to come back to the community,

But only by offering him a stipend,

A big monthly stipend for him to return to the community.

So just for context,

Everyone else was paying to study with Gergev,

But this man was getting paid.

So when the other students saw this man return and found out that he was actually being paid to be there,

They got pretty upset.

And when they complained to Gergev,

He explained,

This man is like yeast for bread.

Without him here,

You would not really understand the meaning of patience,

The meaning of loving kindness or compassion.

You would not learn how to deal with your own anger and irritation.

So I bring him here.

You pay me to teach and I pay him to assist.

So today I'd like to talk a little bit about obstacles,

Obstacles in our meditation and in our daily life.

So in meditation,

We're mostly sitting quietly and minding our own business.

And the main obstacles that appear are in the mind,

Our own mind.

And one of the things about obstacles,

Mental obstacles,

Is when we invest in them,

When we believe in them,

And when we're involved in keeping them in place,

They're like walls in the mind,

Limiting our ability to connect with ourselves and each other.

The focus is all on the obstacle.

And I've known many,

Many people who really believe their thoughts,

Like believe their projections and their own judgments.

And I can include myself in this.

They kind of live into their thoughts and believe their views and judgments.

And what it does,

If you look at it,

The judgments,

The views,

The projections,

It kind of weighs you down.

It's a limiting factor.

The view,

The way of seeing becomes an obstacle in life.

So to,

Actually in order to really make them obstacles,

We sort of live into them or engage with them.

And they're this glue that we're kind of,

This is who I am.

And when we have mental obstacles that arise in our mind,

It's fairly common for people to be upset that they're there,

To judge them,

You know,

To feel bad or ashamed.

It's embarrassing.

It shouldn't be this way.

I should be able to just drop in and become an enlightened being.

There's this attitude of the mind that can be so critical of whatever the obstacle may be that it can be debilitating.

You know,

There's this strain that limits our ability to connect to our hearts and to ourselves.

And like the story illustrates,

One of the principles of mindfulness practice is that obstacles are our doors.

They're doors to go through.

And there's many,

Many obstacles in mindfulness practice,

Many things that interfere with our ability to be present.

And one of the approaches to mindfulness is to not make obstacles a problem.

You know,

One of the great opportunities to really to become whole is to not dismiss the challenges,

Like not to miss the things which are not ideal.

Whatever is not ideal is an opportunity to learn,

To recognize it and to see it.

Oh,

This too is the teacher now.

What's happening is really kind of one of those great doors.

You know,

One of the great paths of this practice to start to recognize the challenges and the obstacles that you have and make that the path.

That's the way we wake up.

Sometimes it's like bushwhacking.

And in the way that we do this is by just letting whatever the obstacle is be.

Like letting ourselves be let's not make a big deal out of the challenges or the obstacles,

Even if they feel all consuming.

Try not to layer on judgment.

Try not to layer on self criticism.

Just give ourselves a break.

Whatever we struggle with,

Just take a few moments,

Even right now,

Whatever it is in your life that's a struggle and bring it into the field of mindfulness,

Into the field of your attention.

And don't add anything.

There's a famous list in Buddhism called the five hindrances and they can be very strong desire.

So the first one is desire,

Especially desire for sensual pleasure of all kinds.

And we know that in our society,

There's a lot of addictive behaviors around sensual pleasure,

You know,

Alcohol,

Drugs,

Sex.

The pursuit of these things can be obstacles to living a healthy life.

And the second obstacle that Buddhism emphasizes is that of ill will.

So having a strong aversion towards things like resentment and hostility.

This is this is a way of being for many people anger.

And the third obstacle is kind of like shutting down.

It's called sloth and torpor traditionally.

But it's kind of more like giving up.

It's being drained.

We're just not interested.

We're sort of checking out and going numb.

So a lot of times that looks like being on our devices,

You know.

And the fourth obstacle is agitation,

Like a restlessness in the body,

In the mind,

Regrets show up here in this obstacle.

And this hindrance,

We can get so caught up in our regrets,

All the things that we didn't do,

And what we didn't do,

That it becomes agitating.

And there's all kinds of reasons we get agitated in the mind.

But anxiety and regret are big ones.

And the fifth great obstacle from this list is doubt.

And we have doubt about all kinds of things.

And the word that gets translated as doubt,

It can also mean indecision,

Like wavering,

Kind of an inability to make decisions about things.

We can get really stuck in doubt.

So the first thing to notice is that these are happening.

You know,

These hindrances are happening all the time.

Desire,

Aversion,

Shutting down,

Restlessness,

And doubt.

They're happening all the time.

And they can also happen all at once,

Just so you know.

You can have what's called a multiple hindrance attack.

They all just show up.

And they can happen one at a time.

And it can be really a huge step for people just to notice,

Oh,

Desire,

Or aversion,

Or restlessness,

Or doubt.

Doubt is tricky because we don't always recognize it.

And when we're not caught in the web of these things,

When you can start to see doubt arising as a kind of operating software,

Like,

Oh,

I've been operating from this place,

That's how we can start to untie the knot of it.

We can get so defined by these hindrances,

So identified with them,

That they become us.

They become a big part of us.

We use words like,

I'm restless,

Or I'm anxious,

Or I'm negative,

Or I'm shut down.

So then it becomes us.

Just that I am-ness of these hindrances can be really a big part of our identification.

So then to step back and just let be,

We kind of step back and relax and take a more balanced look.

Right now,

There is aversion.

Right now,

There is desire.

If we can do that,

It's easier to really see what's going on and to get to know it better.

And one way that we get to know it better,

And this may occur as odd for some people,

Is that we get to know it by how it feels in the body,

The physical.

Even though it's a mental obstacle,

To feel it physically in you,

Like it does reside physically in you.

Because when an obstacle is strong,

When there's this mental force that's strong,

Likely it's an expression in the body of tension.

Like the muscles get engaged,

You can feel it in the neck.

You know,

There's a tightness in the back.

So the muscles get engaged in some way.

Sometimes this tension can manifest as a sickness.

And another tool for kind of stepping into this world of looking at the hindrances is we want to examine it and look at what are the beliefs that may be running in the background.

Some thoughts are there in the background that support the obstacle.

And we can lessen the strength of these obstacles by relaxing,

Like really relaxing,

Softening.

That's why the meditation practice is so helpful.

We stop and we relax.

We relax the shoulders,

We relax the belly,

We take deep breaths,

We let the body settle down.

And if practice feels too,

If there's too much restlessness in the system,

We can go for a walk,

We can take a shower,

We can talk to a friend,

A spiritual friend that's on this path with us.

Some people like to journal,

But the idea is to get a bit simpler and easier.

Yesterday,

One practitioner suggested a slogan from the 12-step community,

Which is,

Easy does it.

I really love the practice of easy.

You know,

When we're easy with ourselves and steady in our practice,

Letting go can happen for us.

And letting go,

Letting go is a little bit like pausing.

Like if you ever stood at the river,

And we live around all these beautiful rivers,

And you see water that's moving quickly against a boulder,

What generally happens is it bubbles up around it and then moves around the boulder.

It's not an aggressive experience to watch that flow,

That flow around an obstacle.

So sometimes in our practice,

We need to get right up against the obstacle,

Like the water that bubbles up around it.

It may mean that we need to see it more,

Like by getting close,

We get to see it really clearly.

And then we move around it,

We see what we need to let go of when we're right up against it.

And often there's some kind of belief that we have,

Some deep story that we keep bumping into.

The analogy that's often used in Buddhism for letting go is opening a clenched fist.

So the mind can be clenched around something,

Like some identification that we're attached to.

And letting go,

It means to release the clench,

Open the hand of the mind.

When the obstacle or the unskillful states or activities of the mind that you have are painful and you release that pain,

You no longer gripping or grasping around it,

Something that we don't often do is we don't appreciate their absence.

You know,

When we're letting go of something,

What happens for us is we actually can experience our vitality and freedom.

So even if you can't do it well,

The fact that we're trying,

That we're engaging in working with these obstacles,

Stepping away from the gravitational pull of our mental obstacles,

Our mental barriers,

This makes a big difference.

So thank you for your kind attention.

I'll take any questions you may have.