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Happiness and the Hindrances

Welcome. It's nice to be here practicing together.

Tonight I'd like to start with a little bit of a story. Just recently, I had this pain in my arm. It would bother me when I did certain movements, not other movements, just particular ones. I had no idea how this happened; I don't have any memory of doing anything in particular, and it was kind of persistent. I noticed that, of course, I just stopped doing certain movements because it was painful. And then slowly it resolved itself. So it's a little bit of a mystery, but the interesting part for me is that I didn't notice immediately when it went away—like often we don't notice.

But then I did a movement and had this memory: "Oh yeah, I couldn't do this movement." At that moment when I remembered, "Oh yeah, this used to hurt, and it doesn't hurt anymore," there was this little bit of delight, like, "Ah, wow, that's great!" I recognized the stories I had made about it—"Why don't I know what this is and what should I do about it?" There were all these stories that accompanied this discomfort, this little pain that I was having. And I didn't notice it. It just went on, and things were back to "normal." But when I did notice, there was this sense of uplift, this sense of delight, this little bit of happiness.

It just reminded me that this fleeting, flickering sense of uplift or delight is a part of our experience, but we often ignore or dismiss it because it's small, or maybe it just affirms how we think things should be. But this recognition of when something that's been troubling or difficult has gone away, and that little bit of sense of relief when it's gone away, can be a support for our practice.

The Buddha talked about this. There's a simile about this. He says, suppose a person were sick, suffering, and gravely ill; they'd lose their appetite and get physically weak. I think back then, thousands of years ago, medicine was a lot about just food and what you did and didn't eat. Whether you were healthy or not was whether you had an appetite or not. We can imagine that a couple of thousand years ago, their idea of medicine was different than what we have now. Suppose a person were sick, suffering, and gravely ill; they'd lose their appetite and get physically weak. But after some time, they'd recover from that illness and regain their appetite and their strength. Thinking about this, they'd be filled with joy and happiness. Bringing to mind, "Oh yeah, I used to be really sick. I'm not so sick right now," brings this feeling of delight, gladness, happiness, or joy.

The Buddha talked about this experience of how it feels when difficulties end through a few colorful stories and little vignettes. I'd like to share a few of them. For me, it makes it a little more juicy and come alive to hear this painted a little bit more evocatively.

The Buddha says, suppose a person had gotten into debt and then were to apply themselves to work, and their efforts proved successful. They would pay off their original loan and have enough left over to support their family. Thinking about this, they'd be filled with joy and happiness. This feeling of getting out of debt and being able to support others is filled with joy and happiness.

Suppose a person were imprisoned in a jail, but after some time they were released from jail safe and sound, with no loss of wealth. Maybe they didn't get fined so much, or maybe people didn't steal everything while they were in jail. They would be released from jail safe and sound with no loss of wealth, and thinking about this, they'd be filled with joy and happiness.

Suppose a person were a bond servant, belonging to someone else or unable to go where they wished. But after some time, they'd be freed from servitude and become their own master, an emancipated individual able to go wherever they wished. Thinking about this, they'd be filled with joy and happiness. Are there times in which we feel like we're a slave to, I don't know, social media companies that set it up for you to just click one more thing? Or do we feel like we're a slave to fashion? There are all these things that push us around a little bit. But then to notice when we're not pushed around, there's ease available.

Suppose a person with wealth and property was traveling along a desert road, but after some time, they crossed over the desert safe and sound with no loss of wealth. Thinking about this, they'd be filled with joy and happiness. Sometimes we might feel that our journey is really barren, lacking support or things that might be nourishing, and we have to traverse this area.

The Buddha is listing all these occasions, these stories, in which a person is experiencing difficulties. They are all expressed as not being able to go where you want to go, or do what you want to do—this oppression, constriction, bondage, or tightness of some sort. And then when those difficulties resolve, they experience joy and happiness.

Some of you might have recognized those stories. Those are the similes used to describe the hindrances^[1]. These are five energies, five habits, or five patterns that are part of everybody's human experience. When they arise, it is not a failing. It's not something we're doing wrong; it's just what it means to be a human to have some of these five patterns.

The first one is sensual desire—clinging, grasping, or craving for sensual desire. It's this idea that I'm not going to be happy until I have that double caramel, triple chocolate ice cream, or whatever it is. It's surprising how often we're pushed around by just wanting the next pleasant experience. Of course we are; this is a natural human thing, as we don't want to be uncomfortable. But we live in a time in which advertising is always promising there's going to be this next pleasant experience that's going to be so great. This is often experienced as a leaning forward: "I want more, give me more." That's the first hindrance.

The second one is ill will, or aversion. The flip side of wanting more is not wanting it at all. It's this turning away: "I don't want this, get this away from me. Everything would be fine if only this weren't here." That's a habit or a way to meet our experience. To be sure, sometimes this leaning into or averting away from things are natural human responses and aren't necessarily a hindrance; sometimes they can be wise and appropriate. But it's a hindrance when it turns into, "Everything would just be fine if only this weren't here, and then I have to figure out how to do this, and I can't do that because of this..." The story-making that surrounds the hindrances gets going.

A third one is sloth and torpor. This is a fogginess, lethargy, dullness, lack of brightness, lack of energy, or lack of a certain vitality.

The fourth one is restlessness and remorse. This is the idea that there's too much energy and agitation. Either it's in the body, a feeling of not being able to sit still and fidgeting a lot, or it's where the mind can't settle down. It's going over and over and over something, rehearsing or remembering, or just being agitated in general. That's the fourth.

And the fifth is doubt, skeptical doubt. It's the type of doubt where you have this feeling like, "Well okay, maybe I should do this. No, actually I should do this. Well, maybe I shouldn't do that because I have to do this first, so then maybe I'll do this other thing." It sometimes shows up in our practices: "Okay, I'm going to do mindfulness. Well, maybe I should do some loving-kindness practice, open up the heart a little bit. Well okay, yeah, maybe mindfulness is better. Yeah, but that person said concentration is good, then I'm going to do concentration practice." It's this kind of not really settling down.

Tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about this relationship between the hindrances and joy, happiness, well-being, or delight. We could say, obviously, the hindrances are like the opposite of happiness. But I'd like us to look at this a little more closely; maybe that's not necessarily the case that it's the opposite. There's, of course, a sense of well-being that arises when we notice that a hindrance has ended, although often we don't notice. But it works the other way also: cultivating a sense of well-being—using a really broad definition of that expression—can help us even while we're in the midst of the hindrances. It can help us find more ease with the hindrances. This isn't the usual way in which we talk about the hindrances. Often we talk about, "If the hindrance is this, then you can do this specific thing." For instance, if there's sloth and torpor, tiredness, you can open your eyes, as a typical example. But I'd like to look at this a little bit differently than the way we often do.

As I was saying, something that all these hindrances have in common is a sense of restriction. There isn't the freedom to be open to whatever is going to be experienced next. Instead, there's a sense of being stuck and mired in our experience. In those five little vignettes, there's always one vignette that's tied to a particular hindrance. But sometimes, maybe we don't have to know exactly which one of those vignettes ties to exactly which hindrance, because all of them might feel like a prison, or all of them might feel like you're going across this desert and you're so thirsty and there's no water. They all have this quality of binding uncomfortableness.

Just to add a little bit, the commentaries add a little bit extra to these vignettes. For example, it says there is a person who has incurred a debt but is unable to pay. Now, if their creditors, when telling the person to pay back the debt, speak roughly, harass, and beat them, the person in debt is unable to retaliate and has to bear it. How many times have we seen this in the movies where somebody does a deal with a loan shark, and then the people come back and beat them up? The person just has to run away; they can't stand up for themselves and say, "No, stop it, you shouldn't be doing this." There's a way in which it can feel like we're being pushed around.

But the absence of the hindrances has this quality of release, this quality of freedom. It may be really subtle, but it doesn't mean it's not there, doesn't mean it's not significant, and doesn't mean it can't support our practice to notice this feeling of release or freedom from the hindrances. The commentaries add: "Just as one who has freed themselves of debt no longer feels fear or anxiety when meeting their former creditors." So that's describing the freedom as no longer having anxiety, no longer having this uncomfortable feeling when the creditors show up.

I talked about how the hindrances are part of the human experience. But maybe even more than that, if we're going to have a meditation practice, it's really a hindrance practice, because the hindrances show up. Unless you're in the jhānas^[2] all the time, in some absorptive concentration state from the moment you sit down until the moment you stand up, the hindrances are going to be there. Meditation practice and working with the hindrances work together. We can work with the hindrances by focusing on well-being, ease, joy, and happiness.

To demonstrate this, I'll talk a little bit about the first hindrance. I'm using the words "first" and "second" just because they are typically in a list; this might not be the first one that arises, of course. Oftentimes, when this craving for sensual pleasure shows up in the context of our meditation practice and our life, we don't actually call it "craving for sensual pleasure." Instead, we use the phrase "I need." "I need this thing now, I really need it." And these days, you just go to Amazon.com, click, click, click, and there you go; you can have so many things. There's this reinforcement: whatever you feel like you need, you can get it, if you have the means and are so disposed to do that. This might also fall into, "I need to take care of myself this way," "I deserve it," or whatever it might be.

Is there a way in which we can work with this sense of "I need this" when it's not supportive and pushing us around? One way is to just recognize it's present. Turn towards it like, "Oh yeah, my thinking about what I'm going to fix for dinner is about sense desire." Sometimes that can be really helpful just to name it, and that can take a little bit of the momentum out from behind it. Sometimes just seeing it for what it is, recognizing it, can soften it. It's not always sufficient, though, to make it go away. The next step is to do some investigation and inquiry. How does it feel, really feel, to be having this experience of wanting, this experience of desire?

Sometimes it can feel pleasant right in the beginning; there's this vitality that shows up like, "Yeah, okay, I want this." But if we stick with feeling and investigating, and we feel into it, we see that it's actually not a happy state. It's based on this idea of lack, insufficiency, inadequacy, or uncomfortableness. So it actually is uncomfortable. But often we don't stick around or really pay attention to notice that uncomfortableness. We just go from one desire, try to satisfy it, then the next one, try to satisfy it, and our whole life ends up being this way, let alone our meditation periods. There might be a subtle contraction, closedness, or feeling of being in servitude or in debt—not quite free, maybe an oppressed feeling.

When we feel and recognize that, we try our best not to have aversion towards it. This isn't necessarily our first impulse, but can we then turn towards any okayness? What's happening?

Sometimes when there is some difficulty, like in the previous instructions to turn to the uncomfortableness, our awareness can collapse around that which is uncomfortable. Another way to say this is that the uncomfortableness looms so large and consumes our awareness. But instead, can we broaden our awareness? The uncomfortableness is still there, but notice: is there anything else that's okay, neutral, or even pleasant? This often takes a little bit of energy to open up from this collapsed way in which we meet the difficulty. We can open up to some neutral experiences in the body: feet on the ground, the pressure of the cushion against the body. There might be a way we could pay attention to the breath and allow the breath to be really soothing, as comfortable as possible. Maybe we could just relax the body, noticing if there is any tension in the shoulders. Maybe I can look at my posture and tuck my chin just a little bit, making some space at the back of my neck, which often brings a little bit more ease in the posture. So, orient towards something that's neutral, okay, or comfortable, both in the body and in the mind.

Maybe one or the other might be more evident. Doing this does a few things. One is it interrupts the momentum of wanting. It maybe doesn't make it go away, but it takes some of the momentum away from it. It also reminds us that there's more than just this particular experience that we're having; there's a multitude of experiences. This hindrance in particular, but many of them, can be like the hungry ghosts^[3] in the Buddhist tradition. These are beings that are never satisfied. They have a big belly and really small throats, so they can never get enough nourishment. In some ways, the hindrances can feel like that.

If we are locked into the idea that some sense experience is really going to be satisfying and take care of that discomfort, then what we're actually doing is feeding the hungry ghost mindset: "Oh, I need to get one more sense experience, one more sense experience." I'm encouraging us to ask: is there a way in which we can look at something else that's not just another sense experience that brings a little bit of okayness, maybe even a little delight, gladness, or relaxation in the body? Letting the breath be pleasurable in the way that we breathe, tuning into the rhythm of the breath.

Then we could ask ourselves, what is really lacking in this moment? Like really. I'm sure we don't have the double-decker chocolate thing, but in this moment—not just the past one and not the next one, but this moment—what's really lacking? Tuning into that also disrupts this idea of the hungry ghost that can't ever be satisfied, and instead, there's a little bit of contentment.

Again, this might be really subtle, but it doesn't mean it's not there. There is a sense of, "Yeah, okay, I'm still breathing. This moment, I'm still here," and whatever sense of okayness or neutrality is there. Learning to have this kind of wholesome nourishment or pleasure is very powerful. This can be transformative. It's not necessarily easy to train ourselves to look away from what is difficult, because this is what humans do. Difficulties are like a magnet; they attract our attention, and we can't let go of them. We just get a little bit obsessed with them. But if we can turn away a little bit, the hindrance or difficulty is still there—we don't have to make it go away or solve it—but just notice what else is there that's neutral or even pleasant.

Then we become less infatuated with the idea that something out there is going to make everything better. Instead, we're cultivating something enormously powerful: this idea that we can be with our experiences and be present in this moment. This allows us to be with something that's more fulfilling, more nourishing, and has more depth to it. To train ourselves to do this takes time. It's not something we will do immediately, of course, but it's really worth the time and effort. Just like how the end of the hindrances has some well-being, joy, and happiness, turning towards well-being helps to end the suffering. It goes both ways. We don't have to wait for the hindrances to go away completely; we can open up to what else is there.

You may say, "I don't know, Diana, this sounds kind of odd. Can we really approach the hindrances this way?" I'll say that there are lots of places in the suttas^[4] where the hindrances are partnered with the Seven Factors of Awakening^[5]. The hindrances are what hinder and get in the way of freedom, awakening, and wisdom, let alone getting concentrated or seeing clearly. The hindrances are aptly named because they hinder. The Seven Factors of Awakening are the ones that support finding more freedom and ease, support seeing clearly, and support concentration. One of the Seven Factors of Awakening is joy, and there's also concentration in there. So cultivating this joy and happiness is part of the Seven Factors of Awakening, which is an antidote to the five hindrances. That's a technical Buddhist list regarding this idea, using the Buddha's own teachings to support it.

But I would just like to encourage you to tune in and recognize that when there's a difficulty, and when it ends or subsides—most of them do, not all of them, as we do have aging which isn't going to end, and some of us have illnesses that probably aren't going to end. But notice that maybe when the severity lessens, or when difficulties end, there's a little bit of delight. Use that as a reminder that we can cultivate delight, happiness, and well-being to help us with the difficulties. One way to do that is to open up our experience and maybe loosen up the magnet. I think Rick Hanson famously says that difficulties are like Velcro; we kind of get stuck to them. Can we loosen up that Velcro a little bit and notice what else is here?

So, happiness and the hindrances are one way that we can work with these difficulties that arise in our life. May you find plenty of opportunities to explore happiness, experience it, and allow it to be a support for you in whatever difficulties are arising. And may that support us to also support others, so that we can be part of what makes this world run more smoothly, with more care, and with more warmth. Thank you.