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Gradual Training on the Buddhist Path - Part 2 of 2

Leigh Brasington: So the abandoning of the hindrances is the next step. Sixty-seven: "Endowed with a noble aggregate of moral discipline, restraint over the sense faculties, noble mindfulness and clear comprehension, noble contentment." So this is the warm-up. This is the background. This is what you've got to do before you sit down to meditate.

"One resorts to a secluded dwelling." Right, and so here's a list of potential secluded dwellings: forests, the root of a tree, a mountain, a glen, a hillside cave, a cremation ground, a jungle grove, the open air, a heap of straw. The whole idea is to go someplace where you won't be disturbed. Right? So that's not someplace where they're doing handicrafts, or cooking food, or selling things, or playing a TV. Someplace where you won't be disturbed.

And then, "after returning from alms round." My understanding is that the Buddha and the monks would go on alms round, I don't know, 10 or 11 in the morning, eat the midday meal, and then they would go for the day's abiding. They would go into the forest and sit at the root of a tree and meditate until it got dark, which given this is India and it's close to the equator, is six hours of meditation. I doubt they were doing a 45-minute sit, 45-minute walk. These people could sit cross-legged. Right? So yeah, go and do a three-hour sit, take a break, do another three hours, maybe something like that.

And then we get the hindrances. The first one is given in this sutta as "covetousness for the world." In other suttas, we see it as something like the desire for sensual gratification. I translate it as simply "sense desire." It's the wanting aspect of the mind. So when you're meditating and you become distracted, it's very helpful to label your distractions. The first label that comes to mind is always correct. Spend zero energy trying to get the perfect label. And so "wanting" or any other possibility—if you say "wanting," you know it's the first hindrance.

"One dwells with a mind free from covetousness. One purifies one's mind from covetousness." For dealing with sensual desire, the best strategy I can give you is to take a look at the limitations of whatever it is you're desiring. It's got limitations. It's impermanent. It's less than perfect. If it's a person that you're desiring, well, if you think they're Mr. or Ms. Right, they're probably not interested in you. I suspect Mr. and Ms. Right have already hooked up with each other, and we're left with what's left.

Okay, so everybody is going to be less than perfect. I mean, if you're totally perfect, what are you doing here? You should be teaching the class. Right? So we've all got our problems here, and anybody that you're lusting after, they have their problems too; they're less than perfect. And that thing, it's less than perfect. I mean, if it's expensive, you're going to need to increase your insurance payments, or put an alarm in your house. The list is endless of how things are less than perfect. So if you find yourself caught in a hindrance of wanting, examine what you're wanting and see its less than perfect aspects.

Okay, if it's food, eat less food. You don't get to the place of not wanting food by eating more food. Right? You will temporarily, but it'll just come back and you'll want it again. If you can wean yourself to eating less and less food, then food is not a problem. It's also helpful for overcoming sloth and torpor.

"Having abandoned ill will and hatred." Okay, ill will and hatred. This is sort of the most egregious form of aversion, or not wanting. So the first hindrance is wanting, the second hindrance is not wanting. "He dwells with a benevolent mind sympathetic for the welfare of all living beings. He purifies his mind from ill will and hatred." The number one thing to do if you find yourself with aversion, ill will, hatred, anger, anything like that: label it and then see, can you drop it?

Oh, and when you finish the label and you come back to your meditation object, like the breath, relax. Whatever that distraction was probably put a little tension in there. Yeah, just relax. And then back to your object. But if it keeps pulling you away, then it's aversion. The antidote is mettā[^1] practice. So drop the attention on the breath, or the body scan or whatever you're doing, and just start doing mettā. You don't have to do the mettā for the person towards whom you're having the adverse reaction. That may be too much. Do mettā for yourself, do mettā for your best friend, your significant other, the Dalai Lama. You know, just find somebody to do mettā for. And do it long enough so that it's mood-altering. I mean, you can tell when you start doing mettā in an aversive state of mind, it's just sort of rote doing mettā. But eventually, hopefully, you get to where "Yeah, it feels different." You've got the mood-altering part happening. So get to that point and do it some more. And then you can go back to your breath or your body scan, or you can just keep doing mettā. Mettā is a great practice. If I could only do one practice... you know, they came to me and they said, "You can only do one practice." I'd choose mettā. What a wonderful thing.

"Having abandoned dullness and drowsiness, one dwells perceiving light, mindful and clearly comprehending." Dullness and drowsiness is one translation; sloth and torpor is the usual translation. Yeah, it's too little energy. It could be physical. You didn't get enough sleep last night, and you sit down and meditate and you're falling asleep. Or it can be mental. "Yeah, I know it's time to meditate, but I just don't feel like it." Right? If it's physical, you can do things like pinch and pull your earlobes. If you know where the acupressure points are on the side of your ear, you can squeeze those really hard, rub your cheeks, you can stand up, you can open your eyes, look at the brightest light you can see. Standing up is sort of like, okay, if nothing else is working, stand up. If you stand up, you can continue doing whatever form of meditation you were doing: breath, mettā, body scan. Or you can notice the subtle sensations in your feet if you keep your balance. It's very important when you do standing meditation to flex your knees. If you lock your knees, you'll pass out and fall and it will be unpleasant—dukkha[^2]. Right? So flex your knees. And I've meditated a lot by just putting my attention in my feet and noticing just the subtle sensations there. They're subtle, so you have to concentrate. That's good. And then if you feel like okay, you're energized again, you could sit back down and continue your meditation. Or, yeah, maybe you just continue to do the standing meditation to the end of the period.

If it's more like laziness, meditate again. The best thing is some inspiration. There are a lot of little books out there, you know, each chapter is a page or two or three pages of inspiring stuff. Stuff from Jack Kornfield. I know he has a couple of those around; you get yourself something you find inspiring. I mean, it can be a big, long, thick book and you just read a couple pages in it. Make it be a translation of the suttas. And you just read a sutta or two or three, right? Find something that's inspiring. And that can definitely help with "Okay, yeah. All right, now I'm ready to meditate." So find some inspiration. It's useful to have an altar that has, you know, a picture of the Buddha, a picture of the Dalai Lama. I mean, there are tons of inspiring people around. And so yeah, you sit down in front of them, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, they're all looking at me. I gotta do this." That can be perhaps enough inspiring.

"Having abandoned restlessness and worry..." It's usually translated as restlessness and worry, but I looked at the Pāli, and "remorse" would be a much better translation. It's worry about what happened in the past. It's not worry about what might happen in the future. I would say worry about the future would actually go under aversion. Because generally if you're worried about the future, you're averse to something terrible happening. And that's why you're worrying about it. So I would put that in under aversion, but it doesn't matter. I mean, they're just categories to try and help you. But if it's worrying about "I shouldn't have said that to that person, that was really kind of unskillful," yeah, that's the remorse.

Okay. So "having abandoned restlessness and remorse, one dwells at ease within oneself with a peaceful mind." Hence for that are much learning, asking questions, associating with wise people, things like that. I would say that, if you sit down and you're physically restless, it may be better to like, go for a brisk walk. You know, something that burns some energy. This can also be useful if you're sleepy; go for a brisk walk and get your energy up. So trying to find that middle space on an energy level. If it's the mind that's restless, yeah, find something inspiring to read or something like that.

Restlessness can show up in a lot of subtle ways. I noticed when I was spending a lot of time in the Forest Refuge and I was doing relatively long sittings—I mean, an hour and a half was pretty typical—then at some point, I would start getting very restless. And I realized that actually, I was getting uncomfortable. But I was paying so little attention to my body, I didn't notice the discomfort. But my body noticed and it started showing up as mental restlessness. And so that's the thing to check. It's actually quite important that you meditate in a comfortable position.

Just above this, we had "one sits down cross-legged, holds one's body erect, and sets up mindfulness before oneself." I would say yeah, if you can sit cross-legged, great. But we have these evil things called chairs. And they've screwed up our ability to sit cross-legged. So sit in a chair, be on a bench, lie down if necessary. If you lie down to meditate, pull your knees up, so your feet are flat on the bed or floor or whatever you're lying on. And your knees are up making a little triangle there with your feet and the point where your knees touch each other.

Okay. And then "sets up mindfulness before oneself." So literal translation, one sets up mindfulness at the muktha. Muktha means mouth, but I think it's like the mouth of a cave, the opening, and I'm assuming that's the opening at the nostrils. But yeah, restlessness. So in the ten fetters that bind us to the wheel of samsara, restlessness is the last one of these hindrances to go. You know, as long as you're not fully awakened, there's a tendency for restlessness to be there. And if it's bodily restlessness, that can be taken care of with exercise, usually. If it's mental restlessness, yeah, that's harder. You also might want to pay attention to your caffeine intake; that can certainly lead to bodily restlessness as well as mental restlessness.

And then, "having abandoned doubt, one dwells as one who has passed beyond doubt, unperplexed about wholesome states." The "unperplexed about wholesome states" appears to be something that's in there to counteract the Jains. The Jains were a different religion, a tradition at the time of the Buddha. And they were making a big deal about finding wholesome states; the Jains were basically trying to avoid any negative karma. Because if you created any negative karma, then you're going to be reborn and have to do it all over again, and they wanted to not be reborn. They had a craving for non-existence, basically, vibhava-taṇhā. And they were really trying to figure out what were the unwholesome states, so they couldn't do that. So it's a big deal. And I think that's what prompted this to be put into this here, doubt about what is wholesome or unwholesome, because the Jains are making a big deal about it. And what the Buddha is saying is, "Yeah, you can overcome the doubt. You know what's wholesome and unwholesome, you're practicing the precepts."

But doubt can show up in other ways as well. And I think that's what's much more common. There can be doubt about the Buddha. Did he really know what he was talking about? Doubt about the dharma. Is this the truth? Doubt about the sangha. Did anybody else get enlightened? Can somebody today get enlightened? Doubt about the teaching. Is this really what the Buddha was saying? Is this accurate? Doubt about the teacher. I mean, today you're listening to a retired hippie computer programmer. You might have your doubts. "Who is this guy? I have a degree in math. I didn't study this stuff." Right? And then the most insidious doubt of all: Yeah, what about yourself? "I can't do this. This is too hard." This will really stop you on the path. But this is hard. I mean, if the spiritual path was easy, we'd have all gotten fully awakened a long time ago, right? Yeah, it's hard. It's gonna be a lot of hard work. But the rewards are immense, but you just gotta put in the work to do it. And it's a slog at times.

This is why, for each of these hindrances in the commentary to the commentary to the commentary—yes, they have that—it says that noble friends and noble conversations are antidotes for all of the hindrances. In fact, this is the story of Ananda coming to see the Buddha and saying, "Venerable sir, I say that noble friends and noble conversations are half the holy life." And the Buddha says, "Do not say so, Ananda. Noble friends and noble conversations are the entire holy life." It's really difficult to do this by yourself. I mean, I totally admire the Buddha for pulling it off. I also know I couldn't do this without the support of my noble friends with whom I have noble conversations. I was in Jack Kornfield's teacher training program. And each time we met, we'd meet for four days, four times a year for four years. And each time we met, we spent one of those days with some other teacher. And the best teacher that we spent time with was the late Yvonne Rand, who used to live out by Muir Beach, out there by the Green Gulch Center. And she said two things that are really important. One was, "Don't believe your own publicity." And two, "You must have friends that will call you on your stuff." Anytime you do something stupid, you have to have friends that will tell you, "That was stupid." Right? And this is so valuable. And I do have friends like that. And they are, they're worth much more than their weight in gold. I mean, all of us do stupid things. Come on, we're not enlightened, we do stupid stuff. And it's really important to get the feedback from your friends when you have a stupid idea, or you're going to do a stupid thing, to help you stay on path. And having noble friends with whom you can have noble conversations really helps with the doubt. The doubt about "I can't do this," and your friend says, "Yes, you can. Look at the progress you've made," and they should point out to you what you were like five years ago when you were a complete idiot and how much smarter you are now with your behavior, or anything like that. So yeah, noble friends and noble conversations are what is needed for overcoming all of the hindrances and it's especially helpful for doubt.

And then what follows is the similes I gave you: being in debt, being physically ill, being in prison, being a slave, and traveling through the desert. As similes for wanting, not wanting, too little energy, too much energy, and doubt.

Questions? Comments?

Q&A: Hindrances

Speaker: Hi, Leigh, lovely to see you.

Leigh Brasington: Good to see you. Are you coming to us from Australia?

Speaker: Yeah, of course. I got up early. I often get up early to attend these things. And it's really lovely to hear your stories and connect with you again. I just had a... it's a bit of an intellectual question. When you spoke about restlessness being the last hindrance to disappear, I'm also aware that the fetters went up and were that the fetter of māna or the conceit of "I Am" as being the last fetter that will disappear, which disappears in arahantship. Can you make a comment about that, when all the hindrances disappeared, that means we're awake, right?

Leigh Brasington: When the hindrances disappear temporarily, we're set up for doing the concentration practice. When they are uprooted completely, you're fully awakened. Right. And the last hindrance really is, as you said, the conceit, the conceiving of a self. If you have no self, there's nobody to get restless. So that takes care of the restlessness at that point. And that's it, arahantship. The doubt goes at the first stage of awakening. And the greed and aversion are weakened at the second stage and uprooted in the third stage. And the sloth and torpor isn't ever mentioned. The commentaries plug it in there somewhere, but I don't remember where because, yeah, the Buddha didn't talk about it.

Speaker: Thank you very much. Lovely to see you and hear you again.

Leigh Brasington: Great. Victoria.

Speaker: Thank you. This is actually a question I had before. So it's a little bit off topic. But I forgot what my question was, so I put my hand down before lunch. Just now came back to me. It's kind of a fraught question. I know quite a number of prominent Buddhist teachers—I won't name them of course out of discretion—but who maintain what I view as a very judgmental, I view as a kind of hypocritical stance, insofar as they are very dogmatic about being atheistic, no beliefs. "Buddhism is not a religion, it's a practice," blah, blah, blah. And yet, in the creation of their altars, in the way that they also sort of practice, in the way they encourage others to practice, it strikes me as very... they're very religious. So they're kind of talking out of both sides of their mouths. And it just... I can't remember why it came up this morning. But I'm just concerned about, like this idea of the altar, like, how far do you go with that? Because I know in other religions, there's that whole issue of graven images, worshipping them, like in Judaism, et cetera, et cetera. And so I feel like, for example, the Tibetans, at least the ones I've encountered, are very straightforward about that. But it seems like in the western sort of Vipassana tradition, it seems very muddled. And I just wondered about your take on that. Because while I think it's, you know, fine either way, it's just what disturbs me is when one hears contradictions all the time from the same people. Yeah.

Leigh Brasington: So setting up an altar can be inspiring, but it should not be worshipped, right? That's very clear. And how or if it's inspiring is up to each individual. Maybe you don't have an altar, that's fine. Maybe you can't relate to it. Maybe you have a very elaborate altar, because when you sit down in front of it, it puts you in the mood for doing your practice. So I'm going to look at it more from a practical standpoint of: if you have an altar, is this helpful? You should not imbue your altar with anything that is going to, on its own, change you. Right, it's gonna inspire you perhaps, but you know, having a statue of the Buddha is not going to make you enlightened. Right, you gotta do the practice to get there.

Speaker: I guess what I'm aiming at is kind of, that's why I came up this morning when you were talking in the sense of craving. That it seems to me that the more one invests in the material world, the more one is prone to craving. So in that sense, I almost wonder if it can serve as a hindrance. I mean, I'm an art historian professionally, so I have nothing against beautiful things at all. But it's that fine line between appreciating and coveting, yeah, or clinging or making it a crutch, that you need it in order to practice, that without the altar you feel bereft in some way.

Leigh Brasington: Yeah. And you don't want to go to those negative places. I mean, if you find the altar inspiring, great, have an inspiring altar, but don't get attached. That's always the rule: don't get attached, whatever it is. And the teachers who are more teaching from a materialist perspective, yeah, they might still have an altar because they find it inspiring. You know, it's a reminder, "Oh, yeah, there's something better than just what I'm doing here in my regular life, I can actually up my game." And I got reminded because I looked at the altar, and I've got the Buddha and I've got the Dalai Lama, and I've got my teacher and I got this other teacher.

Speaker: I was just wondering, like Christians say, "What would Jesus say," I always wonder with this altar business, what would the Buddha say? Like, did he want to be worshipped? I mean, it's human nature to want to put on the pedestal everything that we admire, and that we aspire to. So I see that in general as in human nature as a hindrance, this transference and worship.

Leigh Brasington: Yeah. And originally, there wasn't a representation of the Buddha; the Buddha was represented as a pair of footprints. Okay, he's gone to, you know, gone to awakening, and occasionally a few other things, but it was not a human representative. The first Buddhist statues come out of Gandhara, which is where Alexander the Great left some of his generals to form kingdoms. And they were influenced by Buddhism coming in from Kashmir, in northwestern India, into what is now Afghanistan. And these are Greeks. So of course, they made statues because the Greeks make great statues, and they made the first statues of the Buddha. In the San Francisco Art Museum, which is in the old library downtown San Francisco, definitely worth going to see, there's a lot of Buddhist statues there. And they have a Gandharan statue. And if you didn't know any better, you would look at it and go, "Yeah, this is obviously Greek." It looks like Apollo because it was modeled after statues of Apollo, but it's the Buddha. So, yeah, this is a later thing of having statues, and of course photographs and all this sort of stuff. Originally, it was maybe a pair of feet. And for the dharma, a wheel with eight spokes, right. That was the representation, the art was available. But if you find some useful, go ahead, use it.

Speaker: Yeah, it's not about my own practice. It's more that I, maybe because I'm an art historian, I feel like sometimes there's an ambiguity in the way that Westerners teach practice, that they themselves are unclear on that fine line. Yeah, so maybe I'm being too judgmental, but I felt safe with you to bring it up.

Leigh Brasington: Yeah. Since this is being recorded, I'm not going to discuss what I find wrong with other teachers. Okay.

Speaker: Well, I didn't mention any names anyway. Thank you. That's a lot to think about. Thank you. Right.

Speaker: Thank you very much. I appreciated your comments about the restlessness and remorse being more about remorse and regret. So the kind of worry fits with my own experience. I had a question about something