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Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (3) Hindrance of Torpor

Hello, and welcome to this week where we're considering what the early Buddhist tradition considers the primary hindrances or obstacles to meditation practice. These five are also what many of us can recognize as the primary challenges that we face in our daily life as well.

The first is sensual desire in particular, or a certain kind of greed, avariciousness, wanting something so desperately. The second is ill will or aversion—wanting something to go away, be destroyed, or not exist—with a certain degree of outright^[1] animosity. Both of these—desire and aversion, anger for example—are energizing. There can even be a sense of pleasure in the energy of life, the energy of being vigorous and engaged. For some people, maybe part of their addiction to anger and desire is how it helps them feel alive, and therefore that they count, that they're valuable, or that there's purpose.

The next hindrance is usually translated as sloth and torpor^[2]. I'll talk more about this later and how these might not be the best translations, or that there might be interesting alternatives to look at. But this is where the life energy dissipates, where the "caffeine of the soul"—desire and aversion—is no longer there. Without that caffeine, there can be withdrawal, there can be dullness. Torpor sets in. Complacency, a kind of giving up. That can happen if things are comfortable in meditation, the complacency of pleasure or bliss, and we stop engaging in the mindfulness because we're just enjoying it. In that way, vitality dissipates—the vitality of the inspiration of, "I'm here, fully here." It can be complacency, or it can just be a shutting down. It could be no longer applying ourselves to what we are doing because we're enjoying it. It could also be the shutting down that comes from, "It's too difficult," "I'm discouraged," "I'm bored," or "This is not really doing me much good, and I'd rather be doing something exciting, to follow the dictates of my desires and aversions." So, there's a shutting down.

One of the things we want to do as we meditate is to notice the ebbs and flows of the vitality or the energy that we are engaging with. We don't want to have too much, and we don't want to have too little. Just the middle, just right. "Just right" means there is no striving; clinging desires, greed, or pushing haven't taken over. At the same time, giving up hasn't taken over; shutting down or getting too calm and too complacent hasn't taken over. Just the right amount.

It doesn't have to be so dramatic. I don't know what a good example for you is, but in the best circumstances when you're not really tired, it's the kind of alertness you need to drive a car on the freeway where there's not much traffic, but you have to constantly stay present. You can't shut down, you can't drift off. Or taking an exam when you really know the subject well; it's not a strain, but you have to stay present and alert. You can be relaxed but also alert continuously. It's just right.

So what I'm suggesting for this meditation is to watch the ebbs and flows of the energy, the level of engagement you have with the practice, and see how it shifts and changes. Maybe do not try too hard to get it "just right." Be content that you're gently swinging just past the center, and maybe occasionally you feel you have it right. Just watch the ebbs and flows of your engagement.

Guided Meditation

Assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes. Straight off, feel the vitality or the energy level in your body, whatever it might be: low, high, or medium. There might be, in any single person's body, different parts of the body with different degrees of vitality. We might over-identify where it's most energized and active, or least. See if you can find some place in your body where the sense of vitality and engagement is medium, middle.

Maybe it's the effort to keep your lower back upright, or the sensations of your arms positioned in your meditation posture. Or maybe there's something at the base of the stomach that seems like it's alive and vital. The vitality is there, but it contains no striving, no complacency, just there.

In the same way, there might be in your mind, in your awareness, different degrees of energy or engagement. Some things arise and your mind is straining and pushing, or alarmed, energized, and excited. Other things happen and you're discouraged, deflated, or you just love to settle back and float, almost drift off. Can you find that place in the mind? Find something you're aware of right now that's medium, just balanced. No excitement, but no deflation. Easy to be aware. Maybe the tingling in your fingers, the contact of your hands against some other part of your body. Maybe the beginning of the inhale, the beginning of the exhale.

Notice, as we continue now in silence, the ebbs and flows of how energized you are in practicing mindfulness, without being concerned that what you're doing is right or wrong. Just see clearly how it is. And if you find the medium, trust that. Trust being with that for as long as you can.

[Silence]

As you're practicing now, is your mindfulness compromised by desires, by aversions, or with a shutting down, giving up, letting go? Letting go into torpor, complacency. Where is the middle way in engaging mindfulness?

[Silence]

And as we come to the end of this sitting, considering the next time you'll get up and go out into the world (the world being the presence of other people), what occurs to you? Does that activate more the realm of desires, wanting something? More the realm of aversion, not wanting something? Or does it shut you down? Does it freeze something of you, sink something of you, shut down maybe from overwhelm or maybe from boredom?

If you're able to gaze upon the world with the middle way, without the strain of any desire, without the strain or tension of any aversion, just gaze upon the world kindly. With an aliveness, vitality, and clarity. Neither wanting nor not wanting, except to see clearly. Just^[3] be still and gaze upon the world kindly. Let your awareness be calm and settled so that your heart's well-wishing, your heart's ability for friendliness and kindness, can be expressed or come alive through these words:

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free.

Thank you.

The Talk

Hello and welcome to this third talk on the five hindrances^[4]. Today we do the third hindrance. The hindrances are that which compromises our capacity for a useful engagement with our activities, whatever we do, whether it's meditation or life itself. I use the word "engagement" because being mindful is also an engagement; something is activated or comes alive when we're mindful. To only associate mindfulness with calm might actually encourage a kind of dullness in the mindfulness. But to associate mindfulness with making effort, for some people, means that we're trying too much, we're straining, or we're agitated in a certain kind of way. There is a classic metaphor^[5] in Buddhism of the middle way: where is that middle?

In terms of the five hindrances, the first two are grasping^[6] desire—compulsive desire, clinging desire—and hostile aversion. Desire and aversion are both energizing. Some people, even if they're really hostile, love to be hostile and angry because now they feel truly alive, and otherwise they don't feel much. Maybe they feel unworthy, dull, or bored. Being angry makes them feel energized, like they have purpose. That's what they're attached to—not necessarily the aversion, but being energized. They love it.

The same thing happens with desire. Sometimes with fantasies of different types, it might be a pleasant fantasy of desire, but it's the sense of coming alive, what it does in the body and the feelings, and feeling like there's purpose and meaning. Sometimes people spend a lot of time in fantasy because there's a pleasure in feeling alive. For some people, aversion and desire operate as the "caffeine of the soul." It's a caffeinated thing where we are using something to keep us energized that's not really natural.

When we find ourselves no longer caught in desires and aversions in meditation, some people don't know how to be alive, energized, and engaged without them. So there can be a dullness that sets in. There can be a kind of caffeine withdrawal, and it can be awkward in times of boredom, feeling dull, feeling maybe headachey, or feeling uncomfortable. It is very important to realize that, just like with withdrawal from caffeine, it takes a while to work it through the system. The withdrawal from a life of constant desires, constant aversions, or both, involves a period of awkwardness for a little while. We don't quite know what foot to stand on, or we feel dull, bored, shut down, or even discouraged. We have to have the wisdom to know how to go through that.

The third hindrance is usually translated as sloth and torpor. These are English words that I probably never used until I came to the Vipassana^[7] tradition and teachers were using them for this third hindrance. It's not the same thing as physical and mental tiredness. Tiredness can come from overexertion or from just not having slept enough, and that can have a big effect on meditation as well. There we have to be careful; maybe it's more important to take a nap than it is to meditate. If people are sleep-deprived, it's probably better to sleep than to meditate. Ideally, you get enough sleep and then you can meditate without that sleepiness. Some people, however, when they're sleepy but can't sleep, find that meditation helps settle something so they can go to sleep.

But sleepiness is not sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor is a psychological condition that compromises our capacity to be mindful in a balanced, engaged way. There's a variety of things that can do that. One is the withdrawal symptoms of no longer being caught up in desires and aversions. Sometimes it's because the meditation is going well; we're getting fairly concentrated and calm, but we're getting too calm. The mind kind of goes into a dreamlike state. If there are a lot of dreamlike images and things feel basically pleasant in meditation, people get complacent. They get lulled into a dreamlike state. That's usually a sign that there's not enough engagement, not enough vitality in the mindfulness.

The art is to turn the dial a little bit, just enough to get that engagement. Bring in more clarity, more active recognition, and really see what's happening in a slightly more energized way. Sit up straighter. Sometimes it's enough for people to do walking meditation instead of sitting meditation. This balance of energy and calm is sometimes called the balance of concentration and energy.

Another reason for sloth and torpor is a variation of aversion. We don't like what's happening, so we shut down. We want to avoid it, and it manifests as getting really tired and dragging our feet. You can see this in spades sometimes in young children. I remember very well how I did that with my mother when she pulled me through department stores. I just really disliked it—even the smell of them set me off with negative associations. I would drag my feet and tell my mother how tired I was and how hard it was. I must have been miserable for my mother to be with. Then all she had to do was say, "Let's go get some ice cream," and boy, the tiredness just vanished! Then it was worthwhile being alive. So it was a strategy of aversion, resisting tiredness.

Sometimes what's called sloth and torpor can be a shutting down out of fear or shock. It turns out that if you look in the Pali-English^[8] dictionaries for the first word that we translate as sloth, one of the meanings they give is "rigidity." I think this works really well for understanding some of the ways our meditation is compromised. Fear can operate in such a strong way that we shut down, we freeze, we don't know what to do, and we just give up. That's what compromises awareness: a kind of rigidity or freezing up, a dullness that is a response to things being overwhelming.

This can also happen in meditation because meditation is kind of like taking the lid off Pandora's box of our emotional life. There are a lot of unresolved emotions that exist within us. As we quiet down, the active ways in which we keep them repressed or avoid them can slow down. Then these deeper wellsprings of anger, grief, or despair might show themselves, and that can be overwhelming. So people will shut down. Some people will shut down so thoroughly that they aren't really even aware of what's going on. They might believe that they're meditating well because nothing really happens until the end of the sitting. They hardly knew where they were during the sitting, so they think, "Boy, that was fast," or "I must have been in deep meditation."

One more reason for sloth and torpor is actually bliss. Some people get such joy, well-being, and happiness in meditation that they bask in it. They give up their energy, lean back, and indulge in it in such a way that the mindfulness goes out the window. There's even no desire to be mindful anymore; things are really dull because they're just basking in the sun of the bliss that might be there.

All these things need respect. All these things need care and love. Anything that fits in the category of sloth and torpor, rigidity, freezing up—these are not enemies. There's no need to be afraid of them, but we need to become wise about them. We need to understand a little bit about why sloth and torpor has come up, because simply trying to increase the level of energy might not be the appropriate response. It might be that we want to stop our sitting meditation if we're really afraid and freezing up, and maybe do walking meditation, or just walk gently around the block. That provides a different context for feeling what's going on so we don't feel trapped. For some people, sitting meditation feels trapping, but if they're walking around they might be willing to be present for what's happening in an easier way. Or maybe meditation is contraindicated if we're up against a really deep challenge. We have to be really careful and consider the most appropriate way to address the freezing up.

In the bigger picture, what we're aiming towards over time is to dial up the efforting, the energy, and the vitality just enough so that we feel engaged in the mindfulness but not tired or agitated. Engaged in awareness, so we're not caught in desires, not caught in aversions, but in that sustainable middle way. You might feel tired, like you don't have much energy, but then you turn the corner and, lo and behold, in a big parking lot nearby, a circus has come to town! You've never seen such a thing. Now you're amazed, and in a relaxed way, you're not tired at all anymore. You're present to study the colors of the tents. I don't know if my examples are the right ones for you for this middle way of dialing up the energy when there's sloth and torpor, but that's the goal. Sometimes we can do it directly, and sometimes we take our time to address what's going on in an appropriate way.

For today, what I recommend is what I offered in the guided meditation. The ebbs and flows of how engaged, present, and clear our mindfulness is have a lot to do with whether we're caught in desires, aversions, or sloth and torpor. Watch the ebbs and flows and see what is compromising your mindfulness. Is it desire? Is it aversion? Or is it a shutting down, a giving up, a complacency? All of the above can operate. Watch the ebbs and flows. That's the assignment, if you want, for the next 24 hours.

Thank you, and we'll continue with the hindrances tomorrow.