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Guided Meditation: Mindful of Desire

Good morning, good day, hello everyone, and thank you for being part of this.

One of the important things to study or learn about in doing meditation practice is desires. How our desires work, how we get pulled into them, the allure of them, the propensity we have to get caught in them, to believe them, and follow them. We must learn how not to be involved in desires, or how to be involved in the desires that are healthy and appropriate for us. We want to be able to choose a healthy desire for meditation and then be able to stay with it, to have a commitment to or engagement with it.

There is a kind of desire in meditation: to meditate, to be present. For some people, it's not a simple one. There can be a lot of greed and attachment involved in that desire—to attain certain states, to have something happen, or prove something. But there can also be a very simple desire to be present, to be with one's breathing as an antidote to being caught up in greed, an antidote to being swept away by other desires. It's a desire to become free of compulsive desires.

If we sit to meditate, and if you use the breathing as your primary anchor for your attention in the present moment, there can be a very simple desire to do so. Without that desire, it can be like just having instructions to do it. One thinks that one is supposed to do it, and will try to do it, but maybe the desire is not there. Maybe you never thought about having a desire; it's just, "Okay, I have to follow the instructions." In a sense, the desire is to follow the instructions.

But it helps a lot if you have a simple, relaxed, but clear desire. A decisiveness that leads to a decision: "This is what I want to do." There's no question about it. It still might be difficult, but there's a big difference between a decisiveness and desire to be present, versus not really having decided and thinking, "It sounds like a good idea, I'll try it, but easy come, easy go." The desire to stay with the breathing then has to be monitored a little bit to make sure that it's not greed, or that it isn't burdened with expectation.

As you meditate here, I teach to do so anchored in the breathing. As you do so, the mind will wander off. And when it does, before you return to your breathing, see if you can recognize if that wandering of mind involves any kind of desire. If you start thinking about a meal, there's maybe a desire for food. If you start thinking about planning the day, there's a kind of desire for the planning. There's a wanting of something, an engaging in something. Don't make it a big, complicated project. It's very simple, kind of obvious. And if you don't see a desire, that's okay. Just let go and come back to your breathing. But notice how often your thinking is fueled by a desire for something, or a desire for something not to be. Then reestablish your desire for being with breathing and let go of those thoughts.

This brings more clarity, more wisdom, and understanding about the mechanism by which we wander off. Often, the wandering off is aided by the desire that goes along with it. You might discover the desire for a meal, or whatever you're thinking about, has some kind of greater psychological strength than the desire to meditate. Then maybe relax. Relax deeply. Remember that now is the time to meditate. There's always time for other desires.

Assuming a meditation posture with the desire for a posture that will allow you to meditate for the duration, but also a posture that supports relaxed alertness. Since there's a desire for clarity and a certain relaxed alertness, what posture supports that relaxed alertness?

Lowering your gaze, you might close your eyes. With a desire to settle in and relax, taking a few long, slow, deep breaths. Relaxing into your body as you exhale. A clear desire or wish to let the whole system soften and relax.

Letting your breathing return to normal. Now, before centering yourself on the breathing, check in with yourself and see how you feel. What is your mind concerned with, really? Also, what might you be feeling emotionally or in terms of a mood? Is there any way in which those represent or come along with an active desire? Is there a subtle desire in the background, or in the foreground, around your thought streams and how you feel?

Then see if you can establish a desire to be present for the ongoing rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. A desire to be present for your breathing experience, for breathing in the body. There doesn't have to be any tension or expectation of success, but there can be a decisiveness in the decision, the desire: "Okay, this is in fact what I'd like to do now."

Settling into your breathing, maybe relaxing a bit with the exhale. If your mind wanders away from breathing, notice if any desire is involved in that, or is representative of that movement of mind or movement of feelings. Acknowledge the desire, and then return to wanting to be with your breathing.

Settle in again, one breath at a time. Letting your thinking mind become quieter as you exhale. The mind moves towards stillness and quiet. You're just breathing in, breathing out.

Most thinking involves desire of some kind or another, even if it's just the desire to think. But often it's the desire for something—for what we're thinking about, or something in relationship to it. Desire is the fuel for thinking. Can you recognize the desire, let go of it or put it aside, and return to the desire to be with your breathing? The desire to be here meditating.

As we come to the end of the sitting, turning your attention outward into the world. The world of other people, animals, and creatures of all kinds. Can you find in yourself the simplest kind of uncomplicated desire for the well-being of all living beings? A simple wish uncomplicated by expectations and obligations. Uncomplicated by the need to act on it, at least for now. To wish for the welfare and happiness of others. What a good idea that would be. How great that would be if everyone could be happy.

And then to give voice to this desire. Even if the desire is just the desire to have the desire. Maybe you could silently repeat after me these words:

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

And then, if you would like, you can add a desire to that. That is the desire that for this day, the next 24 hours, you may contribute to that in some way, no matter how small. May all beings benefit from our community. Thank you.

Dharmette: Dhammas (1 of 5) The Five Hindrances

Hello. For this Monday, for this week, I would like to discuss the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness^[1]. The foundational teachings on mindfulness practice come from a text by the Buddha that's sometimes called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and it has these four different areas in which to cultivate this clear awareness of mindfulness. Over these last four months or so, I've given weeks on each of the first three—maybe starting in June, July, or August. Today, I would like to do the Fourth Foundation. If you're interested in this topic, you could always go back and listen to the others.

The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness is called the foundation of the dhammas^[2]. It's commonly said that the word dhamma has many meanings, and in relationship to this Fourth Foundation, people have struggled to figure out what the proper meaning is here. My proposal is to call it "action" or "activities." One of the meanings of dhamma among the many is that it can mean actions. Not just actions that we do actively, but the activities of the mind.

What we're doing in the Fourth Foundation is building on the foundation of the previous three. We're now taking an interest in the activities of the mind that either keep us in bondage or which set us free. Either those that keep us in the karmic stream or those that lead us into the dharmic stream, following the topic for last week's talks. These five parts are laid out, as many things are in the suttas^[3], progressively, almost like a little map of practice as we go along.

It begins with the Five Hindrances^[4]. The Five Hindrances are something that used to be a standard talk given at week-long or ten-day-long Vipassana^[5] insight meditation retreats, usually on the second day or so. It's really invaluable to understand how these work. These are five forces in the mind that act like black holes. A black hole is a star whose gravitational force is so strong that light doesn't come out of it. In our case, the pull is so strong that awareness doesn't come out. Our awareness gets sucked in, and we get lost in this in a way that's unproductive for clear awareness.

These five are: sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor (sloth and resistance), restlessness and remorse (regrets), and then doubt or uncertainty.

It begins with sensual desires. One of the reasons it's taught at these Vipassana retreats is that it's like the coarsest or often the first line of mental activity that gets in the way of getting settled in meditation, and it has a lot to do with desire for things. In fact, the whole first three parts of this Fourth Foundation can be seen as expressions or manifestations of desire. But in particular for these hindrances, there is the desire for sensual pleasures, and the desire for getting rid of something (pushing it away), which is ill will.

There is sloth and torpor. Sloth and resistance, especially when you consider that resistance is a kind of desire to not participate, to shut down, or kind of go numb. Sloth and torpor isn't just innocent tiredness; it's wanting not to pay attention, not to be here in some way, and being deflated. Maybe we are deflated because our desires cannot be fulfilled, and we're not being satisfied with our desires.

The fourth one is restlessness, kind of regrets and agitation. Restlessness can often come because of unfulfilled desires and we don't know how to fulfill them. Regrets can often come when we had a desire that was not fulfilled, or we didn't do what we had hoped to do, or we did something that we in retrospect realize we wish we hadn't done because our desires were a little bit askew, a little bit off.

And then doubt is when you're not sure what to do in relationship to all this.

We get pulled into the world of objects, the world of things, of experiences, of people. These five can be the fuel for getting lost in that world, sometimes for decades. Mindfulness practice is used to settle that down. Then we are ready to take on something more subtle that keeps us distracted or keeps us from getting really settled, and that has to do with various kinds of attachments or identifications as self. This is called the Five Aggregates (the second part of the Fourth Foundation).

When that's settled, there's a simpler kind of desire that's left when attachment to self is no longer there. That's just simple desires for anything and everything—just simple experiences in the moment. We hear a sound and there's a movement for or against it, or a taste, or whatever it might be. This is called the mindfulness of the sense spheres (the third part)—how we experience in the moment at all the different sense doors.

Once we quiet that down, then the dharmic stream has a chance to surface. Then there can be the arising of the Seven Factors of Awakening^[6] (the fourth part). Seven wonderful qualities of this dharmic stream that begin coursing through us like a stream, almost, when it gets strong. These core states of meditation set the foundation for a quiet, calm, steady mind that then can see the fifth part of the Fourth Foundation, which is the Four Noble Truths^[7]. Having the insights that lead to liberation.

So these are progressive, and we can go through them. Today we'll talk briefly about the hindrances, and then we'll go through the other four, so it's kind of a whirlwind tour of these big topics. In these few minutes I'm talking about the hindrances, I should also say that I have given classes on the hindrances that are on AudioDharma. I've covered this before, so you could go and look it up if you want to catch up with more depth around them, which I strongly encourage. I like to think that Vipassana students should become experts on the hindrances. Think of Vipassana practice, especially in the early period of one's practice, as a kind of de facto study to get a PhD in the hindrances. To really understand them, to see them coming, to be able to recognize them, to know how to work with them.

In the way that the Buddha discusses in this text, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, he says very simply: when there is one of these hindrances, recognize that it is there. When it's not there, recognize that it's not there. When a hindrance hasn't occurred yet, when it is present enough and bright and clear enough, recognize its arising. This idea of seeing the beginning of something, the arising of something, is phenomenally important. It's only possible if the mind is steady and stable so that we can see the arising of things.

Then we recognize that we've abandoned it. We recognize that it's gone away. We recognize, "Yeah, it's really gone, it's not coming back. Wow." As mindfulness and concentration get stronger, one has the ability to let go easily. Seeing it go is meant to inspire faith and confidence in this practice. That we don't have to be stuck in these hindrances. We have some agency around them, and we should exercise that. There is this healthy desire to let go of the hindrances. It's not easy to do, and that's why I say we want to do a big study, get the equivalent of a PhD in the hindrances, so we really understand well how to do this and how to prepare the ground so that we can avoid getting caught in the hindrances.

One learns to let go of it, and then one recognizes there comes a time when the mind is so stable, and beginning to have a feeling of freedom, that one recognizes that hindrance is not going to arise again. I mean, in the short term, at least in this state that we're in, it might later come back. But it's such a nice feeling, so good. Especially if someone's been caught in the hindrances for a long time and struggling with them, it's such a relief to have them go away and then feel confident that for now they're not here.

The word that we're translating as hindrances, nīvaraṇa^[8], literally means a covering. The hindrances are what cover over the depth of what goes on for us, cover over our freedom, cover over clarity, and cover over wisdom. Part of the function of practicing with hindrances and having them quiet down is so that we can see clearly, and wisdom can begin operating in relationship to what goes on. Part of that wisdom is to begin to understand the nature of desires and know which desires are healthy to have, and how to have healthy desires in a healthy way.

As I no longer get pulled into the world of desires of the hindrances, then we can have more freedom, more ability to have this healthy desire. "Yes, what I'm going to do is practice mindfulness. What I want to do is to be present here." Yes, recognizing what's happening at the present moment is better than not recognizing and wandering off in the highways and byways of my mind.

So, the Five Hindrances in the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness: a journey from our contracted, difficult states to liberation. Thank you.