Guided Meditation: (1 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Sense Desire; Dharmette: (1 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Sense Desire

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video (1 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Desire - Mei Elliott. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Mei Elliott at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 26, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: (1 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Sense Desire

Welcome everyone. My name is Mei Elliott, and this week we'll be focusing on the five hindrances, with each day focusing on one of the five. During the Dharma talk, I'll offer a practice that works for all five hindrances, kind of a one-size-fits-all practice. However, each hindrance has its own specific antidote, and during the guided meditations each day we'll explore the antidote for each of the hindrances.

Today I'll be speaking about sense desire, and one of the antidotes for sense desire is observation of impermanence. So the emphasis of the meditation today will be noticing the passing away of experience. Particularly, if there's anything pleasant in one's experience, watching the passing away of that. As for the structure of the meditation, we'll stay with a primary anchor, and then if something becomes predominant, we'll allow ourselves to connect with that new object, then coming back to the main anchor again. So let's go ahead and get started.

Go ahead and find yourself in a stable, upright posture, something that allows you to be alert and also relaxed at the same time, and connecting with a landing point for your meditation. Finding a primary anchor, a place where your attention can rest. That might be the breath, it might be focusing on sounds, or it might be tuning into a global sense of the body, just going to the bodily posture, sitting. Any of these are fine as a primary anchor. I'll provide instructions for working with the breath, but please stay connected to whatever anchor works for you.

So coming into a meditative space. Taking a few deep breaths and seeing if it's available to let go of anything extra. Softening the muscles of the face, the jaw. Relaxing the shoulders. Softening the belly. And setting the intention to be here for this time together.

Allowing your attention to make contact with the breath, the soundscape, or the bodily posture, and then sustaining that contact. Really intending to be with it for the full length of the inhale, the full length of the exhale. Staying with whatever experience you're with.

And if you notice that there's a lot of thinking this morning, you might just bow to the thoughts, releasing them, and then just slide right back to the breath. No need to be hard on ourselves for thinking, or judge ourselves. It's just the function of the mind to do this. In the same way that the mouth produces saliva, the brain produces thoughts. This is just the function of that organ. So it's okay if there's thoughts. Now we just kindly direct the attention back to the breath, back to our primary anchor.

We'll take some time now to land together in silence, sensing our experience with a felt sense of the present moment.

Try bringing your attention to the end of the exhale. Noticing the ending of the breath. Noticing the way that the exhale slowly fades out and dissipates. We're allowing the mind to register the ending of things.

Knowing that the source of suffering is craving, clinging, if we're able to see the endings of things—the passing away of all phenomena—it's much less likely that we will crave and cling to pleasant experience if we know that even that will pass away. So we're training the mind in seeing the endings of things so that the citta^[1], the heart-mind, can be trained in letting go. It can be trained in seeing that all things pass, with no need to crave or cling to anything. Even if we get what we want, it too will pass. To have insight into this quality of impermanence allows us to hold things with an open hand, with a heart of non-clinging. Developing equanimity for the arising and passing of all experience.

As you breathe, you might notice if there are any other body sensations that are predominant in experience. Maybe a sensation in the knee takes your attention. So then you allow the attention to feel the sensations in the knee. Zoom in on those sensations to really get a feel for them. You might notice the arising and passing of those sensations. Noticing if the sensation in the knee is no longer predominant anymore, seeing that passing away, and then returning to the breath. Or if there is an itch, noticing the passing away of the sensation. Maybe the escalation of the sensation, changing from mild to intense, and then the sustaining and the passing away of that sensation. So we're just taking some time now to notice body sensations. Watching body sensations arise and pass, with a particular emphasis on the passing.

Particularly if you're noticing any pleasant sensations in the body. Maybe the sensation of ease, maybe there's some relaxation or spaciousness, or there's some gladness in the heart. You can allow yourself to attend to those sensations. Allow yourself to be nourished by them, to really take them in, and then be present for their passing away. Sometimes they might sustain for a long time or a short time without much change. Just really being there for when there is a change. And if there's nothing pleasant in this moment, maybe only neutral experiences—neither pleasant nor unpleasant—or maybe there's unpleasant sensations, that's fine too. You can attend to those and see the passing away of them as well.

Another area of experience where you can attend to the passing away of things, where you can observe impermanence, is at the ear door, noticing the passing away of sounds. So you might try that now. Sensing into the soundscape. Maybe there are bird calls, or traffic sounds. Taking a moment to rest in the soundscape, sensing the passing away of the sounds.

As we do this practice, we might notice that some sensations, some sounds, actually sustain for quite a long time. One area that we can notice the passing away of these things is just when the attention shifts to a different object. So there might be the sound of the refrigerator hum sustaining in the background, but when the attention shifts from the soundscape to the breath, that refrigerator hum momentarily passes away when we shift the focus of our attention. So that's another way that we can attend to the passing away of experience for objects that seem to sustain.

As we near the end of our meditation together, see if you can notice the moment the formal meditation comes to a close. Noticing the passing away of this experience, the way that it goes into the vanishing. And may our insight into impermanence, our understanding of this change, be a catalyst for our own awakening and the awakening of others. May all beings be happy, healthy, safe, and completely free.

Dharmette: (1 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Sense Desire

Welcome back, I hope you enjoyed the meditation. Again, my name is Mei Elliott, and I'm really happy to be here with you this week.

For the first several years of my meditation practice, my central task of meditation was coming back to the breath. The mind would deviate from the breath, and I would bring it back, and then I would do it again, and I would bring it back, and I'd bring it back, and I'd bring it back. This might sound familiar to you. And while this is skillful in many ways, it really took a long time for me before I realized it would actually be worthwhile to see why the mind was leaving to begin with. What was happening that was causing the mind to deviate from the breath in the first place? What was hijacking the mind and taking it for a ride?

It wasn't until I started learning about the five hindrances that I really started seeing what was fueling my discursive thinking, why it was happening, and then how to become free of it. I really see a study of the hindrances as being essential for anyone training in meditation, which is exactly why I want to spend some time covering the basic teachings on the hindrances this week. This is such a helpful training for anyone interested in the art of meditation, and it completely applies to daily life practices as well. This is really a cornerstone for learning how to be free in one's life and in one's practice.

The five hindrances are: first, sense desire; the second is ill will, often referred to as aversion; the third is sleepiness, also known as sloth and torpor; the fourth is restlessness; and the last is doubt.

These are five specific states of mind that the Buddha named as being known for obscuring clarity. The hindrances inhibit our ability to see clearly. They cover over and veil the mind, but we usually don't even notice that they're happening. They're almost sneaky in the way that we get hijacked by them, but we don't even know that they're present. By studying the hindrances, we're actually taking a look at the veil and we're taking a look at what inhibits the clarity of mind. We might say we are unveiling the veil; we're studying that which obscures.

In this talk, I'll share a general, singular practice that can be used for working with all five of the hindrances, a one-size-fits-all practice. Then each day, I'll go through each hindrance one by one to share some of the specific information about that hindrance and some particular ways of practicing with each.

Today we'll be talking about sense desire. In Pali, that's kāmacchanda^[2]. Ways we might think of this hindrance include craving, wanting to acquire things, longing, or grasping. This hindrance is at work when we crave food and drink, when we crave entertainment, or sexuality. It can be mild or it can be the force behind staggering addictions. Sense desire might be at work if we're hankering for another Netflix episode, or if we're decorating our living space, or if we're seeking pleasurable music, or the perfect cup of coffee. It can even be active when we're trying to recreate a blissful meditation experience. These can all be expressions of sense desire.

As you know, we have five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. In Buddhism, we talk about six senses, the sixth being the mind. The mind is considered a sense gate, and thinking is the activity. So sense desire is craving for pleasant experiences at any of the sense gates. Because the mind can really conjure anything that lends itself to fabricating things that we want, it lends itself to fabricating the idea of pleasant sense experiences. Generally, what's at the heart of our sense desire is a feeling that something could make this moment better, that this moment is insufficient, and that happiness resides in the next sense pleasure experience.

In Western culture, there's this kind of unspoken story of how to create a happy life. It goes that a happy life is when we can string together enough back-to-back pleasant moments—almost like stringing beads onto a necklace—and avoiding all of the unpleasant moments, and then that's what we call a happy life. But of course, we don't have much control over what's pleasant and unpleasant. And, as I touched on in the meditation, anything that's pleasant passes away anyways.

Now, I do want to note that not all desires are a problem. Wanting to be free from suffering, wanting to be compassionate, wanting to be patient—these are actually wholesome desires. In Pali, kusalacchanda^[3] or dhammacchanda^[4]. These refer to wholesome desires in contrast with taṇhā^[5], the word that's used to describe craving that leads to suffering. And yet, while not all desires should be let go of—we don't want to get rid of our desire for awakening or to be kind—it's good to have the ability to let go of them because we can still suffer even if we're grasping a wholesome desire.

The Core Practice: Recognize and Feel

Now that I've shared a bit of the lay of the land around sense desire, I want to share the one-size-fits-all practice that you can apply to all the hindrances. If this is the only thing you take away this week, it will serve you well. It has just two steps to it. It's really simple: the first is to recognize, and the second is to feel. That's what we're doing when a hindrance arises. We're recognizing it and we're feeling it.

Step One: Recognize

First, recognize. We're recognizing what's present. Often when we're entranced by a hindrance, there's typically an object we're fixated on, and this is particularly true with desire and ill will. We're fixated on wanting a better apartment or feeling annoyed by a grumpy coworker. In these situations, we're preoccupied with the object. Then there tends to be a lot of mental proliferation about getting what's wanted or getting away from what's not wanted.

This is where the practice can be extremely beneficial in meditation. Instead of just being lost in thoughts and then bringing the mind back to the breath, if you notice the same theme coming up in the mind multiple times—like, "Oh, that restaurant thought again," or a shopping thought, or a sexual fantasy—this is a great moment to practice this first step of recognition. You might just ask, "Is there a hindrance present?" if you notice that track replaying. Or another way to put this is, "What's fueling this thought? What's behind this?"

Sometimes that can help us recognize the hindrance that's operating below the mental proliferation. We might realize, "Oh, this is sense desire," or "Oh, this is doubt." It's really helpful to know a hindrance as a hindrance, to be aware that it's present. We're so often transfixed by the storyline of what we want or don't want that we don't even know that the desire or the aversion are fueling the whole show.

Sometimes just the act of naming something in this act of recognition makes it so something loses its power. Sometimes if there's something within us that's asking for attention, to recognize it—to identify it—gives it the attention it's been seeking, and it can release. The author and psychiatrist Dan Siegel^[6] coined the phrase "name it to tame it," and so sometimes there's a way that this act of naming it can allow for release.

I have a chronic health issue, and that health issue can make it so that digesting food can be painful for me. If I eat one bite too much, I'll often experience physical pain for a number of hours. So I have to have a really precise relationship with sense desire for food. It's not uncommon that a food thought will arise in the mind. Maybe an image of an ice cream cone floats across the screen. If it's not a time that I can eat that food, the mind will pretty quickly recognize, "Ah, craving," and it will drop the thought and it will drop the associated craving. So there's a way that recognition allows for a release.

Step Two: Feel

Of course, this letting go isn't always available. In these cases, simple recognition won't cause the hindrance to dispel. So then we have the opportunity to practice the second step. Recognize, and then secondly, feel. We're feeling the hindrance. Specifically, in the body, we get to know the hindrance, get curious about it, and investigate what's going on.

In this way of working with the hindrances, we let go of obsessing about the object and instead turn our attention 180 degrees to look inward at the desire, at the aversion, the restlessness, the doubt—turning to look at those themselves. This can begin to pull us out of our trance, out of our daydream. Rather than trying to get rid of the hindrance, we turn and look at it with an attitude of acceptance and openness. We recognize it, and we feel it.

I want to say just a little bit more about what I mean by feeling it. How do we get curious about it and get to know it? We feel the experience in the body. Is there tightness? Is there pressure? Is there tingling or heat? For sense desire, there's often a contraction or tension in the body, so you might just see if that's present for you. Other ways we might feel the experience is we might sense what sort of energy is in the body. Is it high or low energy? Maybe a high-frequency racing, or on the other end of the spectrum, maybe a heaviness or drooping or lethargy. For sense desire, for some people, it has a heightened energy to it because there's a motivation to get something. There can be a forward lean.

We might also feel interested in the hindrance in the mind-heart. What's the emotional tone? How does it color the mind? What does it make you want to do? Are there repeating thought patterns? We're exploring it when we feel the hindrance.

So that's it. Two steps: recognize and feel. Really easy. In applying these to sense desire, it can be really interesting because sometimes sense desire at first glance can present itself as being quite enjoyable. We can get really excited about a home improvement project or maybe there's a new purchase, and the thought can have kind of a pleasant sparkle to it. But under the surface, as we begin to investigate this further, often what we find as the mind becomes more settled is that even that state of craving itself is a state that reflects a sense of insufficiency. There's an underlying sense of not enough, or of lack.

Applying the Antidote

If you're having a hard time staying mindful of sense desire, of doing this practice of recognizing and feeling, then you might try an antidote. An antidote is traditionally a medicine taken to counteract a particular poison, and this isn't any different. When do we apply an antidote to a hindrance? When a person has become overwhelmed or has the sense of, "I can't deal with this," then it's time to try something different. If you've practiced mindfulness of the hindrance for a while and it's not softening, then you might apply an antidote just to help restore the natural balance of the mind.

As we went over in our meditation today, one of the antidotes for sense desire is impermanence or inconstancy. Whatever it is that we want will pass away in time. In deeper meditation, watching the passing away of things—to actually observe impermanence at work—this can more deeply mature our wisdom. When we understand at a deeper level how everything is falling away and changing, it's really hard to be fooled by sense desire because we know the pleasure will pass.

Lastly, and with all the hindrances, don't miss recognizing when they're absent. Allow yourself to feel the goodness of a mind that's free of sense desire. Allow yourself to register the felt sense, the felt experience of satisfaction and contentment. Because the more satisfaction you're present for in your life, the less likely it is that the mechanism of sense desire will need to kick in to begin with.

For a moment, I'll mention just a touch about the attitude. We're meeting the hindrances without judgment. It's just a neutral seeing, with a wise, calm mind of a grandmother. Like, "Oh, just desire, just craving. It's okay."

During your day today, I hope you're able to recognize and feel any expressions of sense desire that might arise for you. And I hope you can do this with a sense of playfulness, curiosity, and patience. Thank you so much for your attention this morning, and I hope you have a lovely day. Take care.