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More on Ramps to Gladness, Faith, and Joy.

Hi, welcome. Nice to see you here tonight, and hello out there on YouTube. Thank you for being here as well.

This last week, I've been thinking more about and continuing to notice this idea of receiving moments of gladness, joy, or faith as they come up. It's interesting—I was also noticing where I don't connect, where I don't allow myself to take in the goodness. We really do have to stay present to receive the gladness and joy that come up in our lives, even in simple ways. It is so helpful to truly try to notice these moments and take them in; it's very easy to skip over the little gifts of the day.

This week, one of the things that I noticed was that there can be things that happen in life that could be seen as good by the mind, or they could be seen as difficult or not good, depending on how the mind engages with it. For example, I had said something to my daughter, and I was joking in the moment, but it really hurt her feelings. She told me that what I had said hurt her feelings, and there was a lot of gladness that she could tell me, that we could talk about what happened, and I could apologize.

My daughter is twenty-five, so there was this appreciation for the maturation of our relationship and our ability to talk things through, not just have a lot of reactivity, which we used to have a lot more of with each other. We got to a really good place. It was a really good thing, and I went to bed happy. The next day, I got up and I felt happy, but then I noticed starting to wonder if she was still okay, if she felt okay this morning when she woke up, and if she felt good about the talk.

So, I sent her a text just to check in, and I didn't hear back. Halfway through the day, I was like, "Oh, I didn't hear back," and I wondered what that meant. I sent another little text, and I still didn't hear back. During the day, I could feel myself having a hard time staying with the fact that we had this really good conversation. There was this energy of worry that maybe there was more conflict to be managed. I could be really clear in my mind that I was glad we had the conversation—it was really healthy, and I knew these things—but I could feel the energy pulling. I'll call it a sense of anxiety or tension in the core of my body.

I was thinking about the five hindrances. Are you familiar with the five hindrances? These are discussed by the Buddha as being pretty significant interferences in our meditation and in our lives in general. I was really naming the hindrance of restlessness and worry. This is one of the five. Restlessness and worry just kept coming in, and while I had mental clarity that this was a good thing, this other energy kept stirring things up. As the day went on, it was like, "Just pull over."

Using the metaphor of driving a car, when the mind gets going, it feels like you're driving. When you're restless and worried, it almost feels like you keep trying to find your way somewhere and getting lost. You just have this relentless searching feeling. The opposite of that was to just pull over, stop, and breathe into the gratitude for the contact, the event, and the sharing that happened between my daughter and myself, and to keep myself there.

Last week, I was talking about savoring. The brain needs our help to savor or take in the good stuff, especially when we've got a hindrance going on in our minds. We need to help it settle, and to help it take in, recognize, and attend. It's like a fork in a road. We can get caught and pulled off into mental hindrances and worries, or we can say, "Nope, just stay here. Just take in what's going on here." This week, I found gratitude was a really helpful way to help myself take an entrance to a sense of gladness, and that gladness supported a lightening of the heart, a lightening of the being.

We pretty much all know that our minds are doing different things; it's not always just peaceful and calm in here. Sayadaw U Tejaniya^[1] is a Burmese monk who has a lot of very pithy, direct sayings that have to do with mindfulness in daily life. One of his quotes is that it's inevitable to make some wrong turns in daily life, but you have to learn to profit from these experiences. Don't allow the difficulties to just keep running the show, but learn from them.

The Five Hindrances

It's good to get to know these hindrances. It's good to recognize when they're present. One of the simplest things to do is what happens in the suttas^[2] when the Buddha is facing some challenge or difficulty. He will reference Mara^[3] as the representation or embodiment of the temptress, all the ill will, desire, and aversion. He'll say, "Mara, I see you," when those qualities are coming up in the moment. It's this turning toward it. "I see you. I see that you're restlessness and worry. I see you here." This is a really important way to help us start to benefit and learn from these visitors.

What are these five? Let me list them for you. Typically, they're listed in the following order:

1. Sensual desire: A lot of desire for pleasantness, for objects, for feeling good.
2. Ill will: Anger, hatred, wanting to strike out.
3. Sloth and torpor: A sense of tiredness or fatigue that can be in the mind, the body, or both.
4. Restlessness and worry: Which I was just alluding to.
5. Doubt: A doubt in the practice or doubt in ourselves that is not very helpful.

Shaila Catherine^[4] says that just as an oyster transforms the irritating presence of a grain of sand into a pearl, meditators convert irritants into wisdom. This goes back to that statement by Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Let's take advantage of it when these things come up in our lives and learn from them. Let them become the pearl, the wisdom that guides us.

These hindrances are energetic; they affect our body. Just think about the experience of having a strong desire for something. What does that feel like in your body? Even just imagining something you really want, you'll see your body leaning forward. Do you notice that? That tends to be what happens energetically with our bodies—we lean toward it, and there's a feeling of a pull.

Now, contrast that to ill will. When you really don't like someone or when you have aversion, bring that to mind. Some event, some person, some food. As you imagine that, what do you notice in your body? How does that energy feel different? Do you want to lean toward it? Probably not. There's more of a sitting back or a pull back in general. I'm pointing to this because this is partly how we start to recognize that the forces of the hindrances are present. We can start to see it in the body, and the body will give us clues.

In terms of sloth and torpor, when we feel really tired, there's a sinking energy, which can be felt literally in our bodies as a sleepiness or heaviness. But sometimes, torpor in the mind can actually get really drifty, dreamy, and quite pleasant. It's important to recognize this because we can be losing touch with the present moment in meditation and not really recognizing it because it can feel somewhat pleasant. In that energetic state, when we're feeling slothful, there's usually a heaviness or a sinking feeling.

With restlessness and worry, for me, there is a habitual pattern that feels like a settling, and then a stirring up, and a settling, and a stirring up. There's a difficulty settling with restlessness and worry. It can manifest very much in the body, and you can see it in the mind through the circular thinking that we tend to get involved in when we're caught.

And then with doubt, what does that feel like when you have a lot of doubt? What do you notice in your body when you're really questioning or doubting if this is the right thing to be doing? For me, there's a way in which it feels almost like a frozen feeling of the energy. Does that resonate for you? Any other words? Feel free to speak up to describe what it feels like for you when you're feeling a lot of doubt, uncertainty, or stuckness.

Audience Member: Back and forth.

Tanya Wiser: Back and forth, okay. That speaks to that energy of "Do I want to, do I not want to?" or "Is this right, is this good, is this bad?" And some freezing.

It's said that these hindrances weaken our wisdom. They're like a sieve because they drain the mind. There's a lot of pretty strong language used to describe them: obstructing, hindering, blocking, enveloping. It's really helpful to think about them in strong ways, but this is also part of being human. These are experiences every human being has. I think it's better to get to know them and understand them, to normalize them rather than vilify them.

Gil Fronsdal^[5] talks about how having a hindrance is like wandering through a maze staring at the ground, where you're never looking up. In contrast, he says being mindful is like standing above the maze to get an overview. Without eliminating a hindrance, mindfulness gives us a better perspective of what's happening. When we notice and recognize, "Oh look, I'm experiencing restlessness and worry," it is like having that above view of, "Look what I'm doing. I can see it now." Before, you were just feeling it and getting driven by it, but when we can have that awareness and recognition of its influence, we have an opportunity to get more free.

Last week, I was emphasizing that when suffering happens in our lives, it is an opportunity to recognize it, to notice the pain and the difficulty of it. In doing so, we can see the maze. When we see the maze, we have freedom. It can help us see that the suffering was actually an invitation to freedom if we listen to its call and recognize it.

Similes for the Hindrances

There are some really cool similes in the suttas for the five hindrances. Sensual pleasure is compared to the experience of being in debt, having a huge financial burden, versus being free from it, like the feeling of not owing anybody anything. There are other similes that are related to water. With sensual pleasure, it's related to a colored pool of water. If there is water in a pot mixed with red, yellow, blue, or orange color, a person with a normal faculty of sight looking into it could not properly recognize and see the image of their own face. The water is discolored—it might be pretty—but in the same way, when one's mind is possessed by sensual desire and overpowered by it, one cannot properly see the escape or see the clarity. It's not available. We don't understand what's happening. It's like being in that maze and looking down at the ground.

I'll just go through the other similes. Ill will is compared to illness or disease, a sense of feeling really sick. When we feel really angry and hostile, there's a great sense of discomfort and disease in the body. It's often talked about as wanting to strike out or push something away. With the simile of the water, it's like a pot of water heated on a fire. The water is seething and boiling, and a person looking into it cannot properly recognize or see the image of their own face. When we're possessed by ill will and we don't recognize it's there, we don't know our way out of the maze.

Sloth and torpor are equated with imprisonment, being locked in a cage, and the feeling of not being able to move. The simile for it is a pot of water covered with moss and water plants. It's full of sludge, so we hardly see any reflection at all, not even a distorted reflection.

With restlessness and worry, I like to think about it as being very caught in a tide pool. The simile describes water in a pot stirred by the wind, agitated, swaying, or producing waves. That distorts the surface of the water and makes it impossible to see clearly into our own minds.

For skeptical doubt, it's equated with the dangers of a desert journey: no water, no relief from the heat of the sun, and no safe space to rest. With the water simile, it's described as water that's turbid, stirred up, and muddy in a dark place.

Do you connect with those images? Do they resonate for you? Can you imagine which of these hindrances are the most frequent visitors in your lives? What would you say, if you feel comfortable sharing?

Audience Member: Sensual desire.

Audience Member: Doubt.

Audience Member: Ill will.

Tanya Wiser: Ill will, and you say that almost embarrassed. [Laughter] This is just so much a part of our psychological makeup and our evolution. If I step back from all of these forces, I think, well of course we need to have sensual desire. That's sort of what propagates humanity. And at this point, we're living in a capitalistic society, so much greed in our society is really fed. With hostility and ill will, well, we used to need to have that sort of hostility with other beings. If you watch animals, it's an instinct.

Sloth and torpor are a natural response in some ways if we're feeling overwhelmed, bored, or disengaged. When we're not connecting with our experience, it's a natural thing. Often, when people talk about being bored, I feel like they're leaving themselves in a way. They're leaving their experience; they're not interested in it.

And with doubt, again, it's important to have doubt. If we didn't have doubt, we might just believe a commercial and do whatever we're told to do. The beautiful thing about working with doubt in the practice and the Buddhist teachings is the encouragement to listen to what works. Trust your experience, not so much your ideas about what's supposed to be happening. We need to commit ourselves to the practice, but then we can stop afterward, reflect on our actual experience, and trust it. With doubt, it's also really helpful to talk to a teacher, read the teachings, or seek wisdom to help you.

Q&A

Do you have any direction you'd like me to go with this talk? Do you want me to go back to this idea of joy and gladness, or would you like to hear more about any one of the hindrances or tips for working with them in daily life? People on YouTube, feel free to write in the chat if there's anything for you as well.

Audience Member: When do you see these five hindrances as indications that you need to work on something in your life, and maybe use them to your own benefit, versus feeling like you need to fix your mindset so you're not having these hindrances come up? Maybe the doubt you're having is beneficial for you, but you feel like you shouldn't be having this doubt and need to be confident. The same thing with desires and ill will—sometimes they are beneficial to have, versus thinking, "I need to fix myself. I need to be more aware so that I don't have them." How do you compare and contrast that?

Tanya Wiser: That's a great question. I don't know how succinctly I can answer it, but it's a beautiful, right-on-point question. I would say, number one, trust your experience. Study your experience. Notice the impact of the hindrances when they show up. One thing that can be really helpful is to notice when they're absent. When we're not in the grip of them, it's hard to have full understanding of their impact or when they're potentially more useful. When you're under their spell, you can't see clearly. It's really amazing to have experiences of their absence because it is pretty blissful. It's surprising how these things that we're so familiar with actually do block our joy and block our capacity to be really present. But this is not something to know intellectually; this is something to know directly through your experience.

When I'm trying to recognize desire, for example, another thing you can look at is what it is you're desiring. You can use some discernment. Am I desiring peace and freedom, and so I'm motivated to get to the Insight Meditation Center and sit on my cushion? There can be very wholesome things that desire supports us in. But if the desire isn't wholesome—if it's not leading toward a beneficial outcome—that's a very clear indicator that the hindrance itself is keeping us connected to something that's not helpful for us in our practice.

I'm going to look here at the chat. Graham says, "I definitely find that I can be drawn into the hindrances much easier when I have not fully appreciated their absence." I really agree with that, Graham. Thank you. When the mind is under the influence of the hindrance, we were in the maze looking at the floor; we aren't seeing the conditions. The evaluation of what is useful and not useful is much more clearly seen when we're free from it. It is helpful to notice those moments of freedom. What is that like to have a moment free from wanting things? Or in the case of ill will, maybe free from not wanting things? What is it like when you don't feel doubt, when you feel confident? What's it like to have a moment of contentment free of that wanting, where everything is just okay? What does that feel like? It's so much more peaceful, really.

Audience Member: You mentioned focusing on what the absence of these hindrances is like. Are there some exercises that we can do? Is it more like daily reflection or writing something? How can mindfulness help us? A lot of times when we're meditating, these hindrances are coming up. What can we do to actively work on this and be more aware of their absence?

Audience Member: It's sort of related, but I think what Tanya is pointing to with practicing with hindrances is first of all recognizing the hindrance. That's a really great reflection. If you're going through the day and you're completely absorbed in a story in your mind about a conversation you had earlier that didn't go the way you would have liked, you recognize at that moment, "Oh, this is restlessness and worry. This is clinging to wanting a different outcome. This is greed, this is wanting, this is aversion if I'm really angry about it." Seeing that is working with the hindrance. Over time, if you continually bring your mindfulness to that process, eventually you'll notice, "Oh, I'm not experiencing that hindrance." You may even be kind of looking around for it.

Tanya Wiser: "Work that muscle" is a great way to put it.

There have been many times I've taught, and other people have taught, a five-week series on the five hindrances here. Those recordings are all on AudioDharma, and if you go to the IMC website, you can actually find the handouts. The handouts have suggestions and tips for practicing for the week, really fabulous ones. Gil also wrote a book called Unhindered, and he has a tremendous number of reflection practices in there. Most of the handouts evolved into this book, so it's a great resource.

Going back to this idea of wanting to have moments of gladness and joy in our lives, it's helpful to actually believe that we deserve to have these experiences. Start with the idea that it's natural, it's a good thing, and it's good for me. I believe I am deserving, and I want to have moments of ease. I think if we orient our mind toward the idea that this is natural and beautiful, it helps us to recognize it when it happens. This helps reorient the mind away from just the negative. The mind has a negativity bias, a threat bias, and so by creating this other thing that we value, we help the mind orient toward it.

It's helpful to know and recognize the absence of the hindrances because then we also get to consciously, mindfully experience the joy that arises when we're free from them. The more we're aware of that and allowing that, the more it strengthens the value that we can place on that freedom.

The more quickly we recognize them, the better. Not in some sort of evil way, but if the water's not totally boiling yet, it's easier to deal with the pot than if it's been roiling for a long time. The energy builds with all of these hindrances, so being like, "Yeah, I want to notice what's happening in my body. I want to notice what's on my mind." It's not bad news; it's really good to start to get to know these things. It's good to notice which ones are your frequent visitors. Get to know them. Maybe name them, give them a color, shape, or size. Those kinds of things all help us realize, "Oh, that's familiar. That's what that is."

It's also helpful to notice not just the pleasantness of their absence, but the way they negatively impact you. Maybe it's not the beginning of the little desire that's a problem, but that it leads to overspending or overgaming, which then leaves us exhausted or depleted. Then we're not doing the other things we wanted to do with our time or spending time with the people we wanted to see. Consciously connect the dots: if I go ahead with this greed or hating energy, initially there might be some thoughts of pleasure or satisfaction, but then it feels like this, and I'm more likely to do this. Play the tape out. Let your mind think all the way through where these energies are going to lead potentially. What that does is grow your wisdom.

It's good to make changes in your daily life to help protect yourself from the things that you know trigger the hindrances. What are the things that tend to trigger your hindrances? Media can be a big trigger. Shopping, overeating, or various things that we indulge in can be food for the hindrances and support their arising.

The other thing that really helps is to actively cultivate alternative mind states like contentment. Really practice with the idea that it's good enough. "I don't have to make it go away. I don't have to make it better. It's good enough." Literally invite yourself to just notice the niggling and say, "You know what, it's good enough. It's okay."

The Brahma Viharas^[6] in general are also helpful. Loving-kindness is another practice, but there are other qualities that are considered very noble and heavenly: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Those are the four Brahma Viharas. There are practices that support arousing those kinds of mind states, and those are protected mind states where we are pretty much free from the hindrances when we're fully engaged.

Thank you so much for your comments and questions. It helped me find some energy to respond to you and focus, so I appreciate it. Thank you, and everybody out there, have a good night. May you be free from the hindrances, and may it be a benefit to you and everyone in your life.