All right,
So just very briefly,
The five hindrances are these.
We have obsessive desire or sensual desire.
Sensual desire we have aversion or ill will which is just pushing away.
We have mental stiffness and dullness otherwise known as sloth and torpor.
Traditionally it's known as sloth and torpor.
These words are a credit to my dear friend and a teacher of mine as well,
Patrick Carney.
Restlessness and worry is the fourth hindrance and paralyzing doubt,
Sorry we got there in the slide paralytic doubt,
It's not meant to be paralytic doubt,
I haven't changed this slide,
Should be paralyzing doubt.
But anyway these hindrances indicate imbalances in our effect,
Our energy and our will,
Our motivation.
So working with the hindrances probably there's many ways of working with them,
There's specific antidotes for each and every one of them.
As it's mentioned in the sutta,
The Satipatthana Sutta,
That sutta about mindfulness,
It recommends them to know them,
To be aware of them,
Just to notice them,
Be aware of them,
Know how they arise and also how they cease and how they can cease in the future.
So it's this process of simply noticing them to begin with and then working towards denourishing them,
In other words not feeding into them,
Not strengthening them and reducing their power.
This is that simply one way of working with the hindrances and there's many other ways.
So the analogies for the hindrances are these,
There's many analogies but one that's very powerfully helpful is an analogy of a bowl,
A bowl filled with water where you see your reflection of the face of the reflection of your face in that bowl.
So obsessive desire or sensual desire is where the bowl is colored with dye,
So you're not seeing a genuine reflection,
It's tainted by the dye that's in the bowl.
Ill world,
It's like the water is boiling,
So your reflection is not clear,
The water is boiling so you're not seeing your reflection clearly.
Metal thickness and dullness or sloth and torpe,
It's like algae grown across the bowl and restlessness and worry is like the water shaken by the breeze cutting across it.
So you're looking at your reflection,
You can't see it because the water has a ripple effect on it.
And doubt,
Doubt is like the water is muddy and it's also put into a dark spot so you can't actually see what's going on there,
Your mind is clouded,
Your mind is muddy.
So sensual desire or sensual craving,
It's usually based on craving for worldly pleasures and what it's about is about wanting something that's pleasant,
We're seeking out something pleasant and this seeking out,
This craving obscures our consciousness.
It actually,
Like dark in the border,
You know,
Not giving us an accurate reflection.
Our desires,
Our mind is coloured by our desires,
We don't see things exactly how they are,
They,
We're we're biased.
We've all heard of how love is blind and you know how when we're in love with someone,
If you can remember back that far,
Like romantically in love with someone,
Perhaps when you're a teenager,
They were just,
You're blinded by the way you saw them,
Your desires for them,
We wanted to be with them,
You couldn't see any faults in them but you know as you grew out of that obsessive desire you could see,
Oh there's a few problems here.
So obsessive desire is kind of really deceitful,
It's like,
It's like going to the fridge,
Having a desire for chocolate,
Going to the fridge and then convincing yourself that you actually need it,
That it's actually the best thing.
It's like we can't see the problems in it,
We can't see the difficulties,
We're just blinded by our obsessions.
We're blinded and we can't see things accurately.
In fact we become slaves to our desires,
Hence when we're free from,
Free from,
Well the slave reference actually refers to another hindrance,
But when we're free from essential desire it's like we're free from debt.
I don't know if anybody's craved things,
I think probably you've all craved things,
Things that are pleasant,
It's like we owe something to somebody when we're caught up in that craving.
So ways to work with it,
We'll reflect on the true nature of the experience,
In other words see its impermanence,
See it clearly as impermanent and that it's,
Because it's impermanent,
It's simply unable to bring enduring satisfaction,
Enduring happiness.
Another way to work with it is actually to contemplate what is unattractive about the object.
Seeing through our perceptions of desirability and of course being mindful of how this hindrance arises,
How it arises,
How it ceases and how to prevent it arising in the future.
Another thing,
Another thing that is really helpful for obsessive desire or central desire is having spiritual pleasure,
Because spiritual pleasure when compared to central pleasure it just far outweighs,
It's just,
You know,
The central pleasure is just pale,
Pale in comparison.
If we can experience the pleasure of concentration of samadhi,
It's one surefire way to reduce our addictions and we're talking about addictions here but addictions are different,
They might begin with an obsessive desire about something pleasant and as after a while they become more like an aversion to the unpleasant experiences about not having that substance,
So we we crave after something in order to get rid of a craving,
Get rid of an unpleasant feeling of being not having the substance that we're addicted to or the thing we're addicted to.
But it's like this addiction,
So if we can actually begin to see the unattractiveness of what we're addicted to,
We begin to let go of the grip that this debt has on us and if we can also see the,
If we can also experience the pleasure of a concentrated mind,
The pleasure and joy associated with mindfulness and the joy and pleasure of living a virtuous life,
A wholesome life,
Then all those cravings,
All those,
All that central desire just seems to vanish because we're satisfied,
We want for nothing,
We're content.
