Guided Meditation: (5 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Doubt; Dharmette: (5 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Doubt

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The following talk was given by Mei Elliott at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 30, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: (5 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Doubt

All right, well, welcome back everyone. My name is Mei Elliott. This is the last day in our five-day series on the five hindrances, and as I've shared, getting to know the five hindrances in our meditation practice is really essential for learning how to settle the mind. The five hindrances, for those who need a review, include sense desire, ill will or aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt.

Today we'll focus on the hindrance of doubt. This might be doubting the practice, doubting ourselves, or doubting our teachers. The traditional antidote for doubt is faith, or saddhā^[1] in Pali. Another word we might use instead of faith, if that word doesn't resonate for you, is confidence, or we could use the word trust. So in our meditation today, we'll be cultivating confidence and trust in the practice. Let's go ahead and find our meditation posture, something that allows you to be alert and relaxed.

Tuning into a sense of the body. The felt sense of being here. Setting the intention to land in this moment.

As we begin our meditation today, we will actually engage in a reflective practice where we're allowing the mind to think, but we're doing so in a way where we're present and intentional about the topic, about the reflection. Let's start by taking a moment to reflect on times the practice has been beneficial for you. Maybe it was a time that you were stressed and the practice made you feel more calm. Or maybe you were listening to a Dharma talk and had an insight about your practice. Or maybe you had a time where you experienced a beautiful meditation state, or there was just a deeper resonance with the truth of the Dharma.

These are all different ways that you might have experienced the fruit of the practice. Take a few moments now to reflect on times where the practice has been supportive for you. We might consider these as reflecting on moments that are faith-building moments.

Sometimes there isn't a particular moment for ourselves that inspires our practice or that brings forth faith, but there's a teacher that we're inspired by. We can also bring that person to mind, how we feel around them or when we listen to them, and we can lean on their faith. We might not have faith in ourselves, but we have faith in the teacher's practice. We can bring that person to mind as a representation of faith. That might be the Dalai Lama, or it might be an archetypal figure like the bodhisattva of compassion, Kuan Yin^[2]. Or it might be a teacher that you know or that you listen to online or in person, maybe at IMC^[3]. Maybe Gil [Fronsdal]^[4], somebody that brings forth your faith.

Having reflected for a few moments on faith this morning, or things that inspired our practice, or ways that we've benefited by the practice, we'll let this reflection infuse your meditation today with some confidence. Let it remind you of a sense of purpose, of why we're showing up here. There's a reason we're doing this practice.

At this time, we'll drop any reflecting we're doing and we'll enter the more formal part of our meditation practice where we can connect with our anchor. Go ahead and find the anchor that works for you: the breath, the soundscape, the global sense of the body sitting. Just take some time to land.

Maybe having trust that focusing on your anchor can support you. Allowing this practice to support you. Not needing to think of past or future. No need to engage in planning or fixing or regretting. You can put all that down and have confidence in the freedom that's possible by staying here.

As we sit, we're bringing just enough energy to the practice to make sure that we can be here. So that might mean bringing enough energy to bring the mind back to the present if you've gotten lost in thinking, but we're not overexerting. We're not trying to create any special states or make anything happen. Instead, can you trust that whatever's arising for you in the practice is exactly the teaching that you need to receive? Can you have confidence in your practice, confidence that the Dharma is bringing you whatever you need, whether that's a challenge or a joy?

This is where the learning is. This is the learning edge. Whatever is arising in your life, in your practice, is exactly the curriculum you need to study in order to be free.

And then trusting that whatever arises, you can meet that. Having faith in yourself that you're able to meet that. Meeting your life with mindfulness, with kindness, with patience. Maybe we can't do this every moment, but one moment at a time we can cultivate these wholesome states in relationship to whatever's happening.

Staying in this moment with things as they are.

Can you trust the Dharma to allow things to unfold naturally?

At any point in the meditation today, if you find that you're struggling to be here, to stay with your anchor, to stay in the body, and you find yourself getting lost in thought or falling asleep, you might check to see if any of the other hindrances are present. You might ask the question, "What's beneath this?" If there's a lot of thinking, "What am I feeling right now?"

Maybe sense desire is fueling the thinking mind, or ill will, aversion. Maybe the mind is like a pond overgrown with moss, filled with sloth and torpor, sleepiness. Maybe restlessness is present.

If you notice any of these things, can you recognize them clearly, shining the light of awareness on them? And then feel them in the body, get to know them. What are they like?

And if there are no hindrances in this moment, take note of the absence of hindrance. This is a really wholesome thing to notice: the mind free from hindrance. That is one of the conditions for the arising of gladness. So if the mind is free from hindrance, see if you can touch into whether there's any gladness in the heart, the joy of being free.

One analogy from James Baraz^[5] about faith likens growing faith to the process of learning to swim. When we first learn to swim, we might be thrashing around in the water, struggling, striving to just keep our head above water. As we start to gain more confidence that the water can hold us, things become a little bit more easeful. You start to trust, "Okay, I'm not going to sink here. I can trust the water." In the same way, we learn to trust the Dharma. "Okay, I can trust this. I can put faith in this."

Eventually, we learn that we can just rest, floating on our back in the water. Effortless, at ease, allowing the water to hold us completely. This is complete confidence in the Dharma. We can rest and trust the Dharma. We show up here, we make the effort to be here, to be mindful, and we can trust.

May the collected goodness of our practice benefit all beings, so they may be happy, healthy, safe, and free from suffering. May all beings know happiness and the causes of happiness.

Thank you very much.

[Bell rings]

Dharmette: (5 of 5) Meditation Essentials: The Five Hindrances - Doubt

Not sure if the bell sound came through for you this time. "Original Sound" has been on this week, but I'm not sure. I love the term "Original Sound," it sounds kind of like a Zen koan, like, "What's the original sound of one hand clapping?" or something like that. [Laughter] So it's okay.

Well, now let's begin for those just arriving. My name is Mei Elliott, and today is the last day of our series on the hindrances, and today is the teaching on doubt.

This hindrance can manifest as doubt in the Buddha's teaching, like, "Does this really work? Well, maybe I should have tried Sufi dancing instead, or chakra realignment. I don't know if I'm in the right place." Or doubt in your teachers, or doubting yourself. Doubt in oneself often manifests as doubt in one's own capacity or ability to do the practice. Phillip Moffitt^[6] says, "Doubt is the mother of all the hindrances because it can stop you before you get started." Doubt is significant in that it has the capacity to make us quit. It can also stop the energy from our practice and agitate the mind.

Some time ago, when I agreed to undergo a period of more intensive meditation training, it was in a technique that I wasn't all that familiar with. In that setting, there was actually a good bit of pressure to learn the technique. As you can imagine, feeling pressured to learn a meditation technique is not a very supportive condition for learning to meditate! [Laughter] So it's no surprise then that it was a little stressful. I was wondering, "Am I any good at this technique? Am I able to keep up with the training?"

One day, I was sitting mulling over my sense of impending insufficiency when something interesting happened. A thought appeared in the mind, and it said, "This is just doubt." That's it. It just said, "This is doubt." And it was true! All that was happening in that moment was doubt. And I went, "Oh, doubt is one of the hindrances. And I know I don't need to take the hindrances personally." With this recognition, this clear seeing of, "Oh, this is doubt," it was as though the magic spell was lifted. The naming of doubt completely released its power, and the whole package fell away. In that moment, I didn't need to let go of the doubt; the mind's inner wisdom let it go.

Now, prior to that experience, I had many painful spells of doubt where I was able to recognize that doubt was present. The mind said, "Oh, I know what this is," but the doubt didn't release upon recognition. Instead, I had to sit with the painful feeling of doubt and sense it, feel it in the body, recognize and feel it. I did the practice that I've been sharing with you: knowing it's present, recognizing it, feeling it, sensing the sensations in the body, feeling the mood that's present—the vedanā^[7]—an unpleasant feeling tone.

Over and over again, I practiced recognizing the doubt and feeling the dukkha^[8], the suffering of the doubt. Part of this was really letting the mind know fully the suffering associated with that form of selfing, with the selfing of doubt.

I want to zoom in a little bit on this practice of feeling. I've talked about feeling a hindrance a zillion times this week, and I want to underline one of the reasons it's so important. It's through being with the felt experience of the suffering of a hindrance—really being in the body with the experience of anger, or craving, or restlessness, or doubt—that our system can register, "Oh, this is suffering. Suffering hurts. You don't want to do this anymore. I don't need to do this anymore."

Through doing this, our system learns to naturally let go of a hindrance. It's kind of like grabbing a hot iron skillet. If we do it enough times, the mind eventually learns, "Don't grab the skillet! It hurts." And after a while, if we touch the skillet, we don't have to think, "Ah, gee, I'm grabbing the skillet again. I really need to figure out how to let go." That's unnecessary. Instead, the hand just releases it.

So when I recognized doubt then, the experience upon recognition just evaporated. I didn't let go of the doubt; it was inner wisdom that let go of the doubt. And that wisdom developed because I had spent so much time clearly seeing, clearly recognizing doubt, and feeling the suffering of it. I had touched that hot skillet enough times so when the mind saw that it was coming, it released it immediately. "Ouch, this hurts, I don't want to do it again."

It's not that the release is coming from aversion; it's coming from clarity. Knowing suffering and the causes of suffering, it can release.

When we become deeply intimate with our hindrances, when we study our hindrances fully, when we feel them over and over, eventually the citta^[9]—the heart-mind—learns that they're dukkha, and the inner wisdom knows to release them.

Hopefully, that provides a little more understanding of how this process can unfold and how much freedom becomes possible as we really get to know our hindrances. We're much less likely to be hijacked by them if we know them really well.

I'd like to shift now to discuss two conditions for the arising of doubt, and both are related: expectation and evaluation. They can go hand in hand. Tempel Smith^[10], the Insight teacher, says doubt arises when reality doesn't meet our expectation of where we should be at. For example, we think the mind should be more concentrated, or we think the mind should have less thinking, or we should be less upset about X, Y, or Z. When that's not the case, when reality doesn't meet our expectations of where we should be at, we feel doubt about ourselves, or we doubt the practice, or our teachers.

Our challenge is to let go of expectations that we should be anywhere else than where we're at in our practice. Instead, can we trust that what is arising is coming right on schedule? This is our new curriculum.

When we don't meet certain expectations for where we should be at, often we're evaluating our practice. I mentioned expectation and evaluation. Trying to assess or evaluate whether our practice is "good" or "bad" or "productive" tends to just be a cause for suffering, and it's certainly a cause for doubt. For example, in evaluating, we might go, "Gee, nothing's happening in my practice, maybe it's not working." Or, "I'm so distracted in my practice. I'm really just a bad meditator." That would be an evaluation. In both, there's this sense of evaluating what's happening. "Nothing's happening," or "I'm too distracted." These evaluations can really be a catalyst for the mind to doubt the practice or doubt your capacity.

For those who are wounded by doubt in their practice—which is most of us, if not all—it can be really helpful to remember that there's no need to evaluate or judge your progress. You can't know where you are on the path for sure, or why something's coming, or how you can grow from it.

If we go to a guitar lesson for the first time, we don't expect to be a Grammy-winning musician the next day. That would be ludicrous! But at the same time, we sit, and to assume that the mind is going to be completely still without thoughts, and that the heart will be radiating loving-kindness—you know what, that might not be realistic. Instead, we need to be really, deeply patient with ourselves.

If we're trying to chop wood with an ax, it might take a hundred strikes to split the wood, and we need to be patient. If on the thirtieth strike we think, "Oh gee, this isn't working, why bother, I'm just going to give up," we're selling ourselves short. If we're evaluating the thirtieth strike, we're not aware of the way that each strike loosens the wood, how it opens the crack a tiny bit bigger. Each strike is a causal factor in the eventual splitting of the wood. We might not be able to sense that or know that, but that's what's happening. Each strike is not just splitting the wood a little further, but we're growing in these secondary qualities. We're growing in patience, in determination. All of these wholesome qualities are being cultivated in these moments where it could seem like the practice isn't working.

On the night leading up to the Buddha's enlightenment, the demon Mara^[11] visited the Buddha to prevent him from awakening. Mara tried all sorts of things to distract the Buddha. He sent his armies, he tempted the Buddha with beautiful women. Mara's final ammunition, after trying everything, he says to the Buddha, "Who do you think you are that you could be enlightened?" Mara's final ammunition is to evoke doubt. "Who do you think you are?"

At that moment, the Buddha touched the earth and said, "With the earth as my witness, I have a right to be here," and he became free.

Doubt is no small matter. It was the last assault for the Buddha before liberation, the last effort of Mara. We will experience doubt in our practice. It arises early in practice, it arises late in practice. The best thing we can do is get to know it.

Now I want to shift to the antidote for doubt. As discussed in the meditation, the classic antidote for doubt is faith, or confidence, and we can use either of those words. Can we trust that whatever's arising is arising right on time? Can we trust that we're right on track? Can we trust the Dharma?

If you struggle with doubt, build a daily faith practice. Reflect on why you're practicing. Recollect moments in your life when the practice was really beneficial for you. That's what we did at the beginning of the meditation. Connecting with moments where the practice has benefited us is faith-building. Borrow the faith of your teachers, teachers that inspire you, to see the practice working in them, so you too can have confidence in it.

I saw a sign a while ago that said, "Proceed as though success were inevitable." Proceed as though success were inevitable. Can we trust that if we just show up with mindfulness and curiosity, that the practice is reliable? We can have confidence in it. We can have confidence in ourselves. Can we proceed as though success were inevitable?

Lastly, I want to remind you that if you're visited by a hindrance, this isn't a bad thing. It's not a mistake or a problem. The hindrances are the medium by which we wake up. In a way, learning to be with the hindrances, learning to do this without rejection, is an act of radical inclusion. We're making ourselves whole because we're not making any parts of ourselves separate. We're not pushing away the hindrances. We're making ourselves whole such that there's nothing we're rejecting, nothing we're excluding. There's nothing left out.

I'd like to end with a poem by Izumi Shikibu^[12], a female Japanese poet from the 10th century. It goes like this:

Watching the moon at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
no part left out.

I'll read it again.

Watching the moon at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
no part left out.

Thank you very much for your kind attention. It's been absolutely wonderful to spend the week with you. May your practice with the hindrances be a catalyst for your awakening. It's been so lovely seeing your messages in the chat and getting to spend this time with a worldwide Sangha^[13]. Take care, everyone.