This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. It's been a while since I've been here, maybe 10 or 12 or 15 years or something like that since I've given a talk here. And it's still a very nice place. And with very nice people. And one of the great statues of Buddha that you could never see. Very fortunate to have this. You know how old that statue is? It's really old. I think it's a second century statue, believe it or not. And it's remarkable that after all these years, no one has yet stolen it. This can only be attributable to religious faith and good karma, otherwise it's illogical.

[01:09]

It's heavy. That doesn't stop people. Anyway, this afternoon I'm going to do a workshop on the five hindrances, a short workshop. So I thought I would start the workshop this morning by talking about the five hindrances. But first, a little bit of context. So as far as I know, I don't know all of you, but probably we're all practicing Zen. And our main practice is Zazen. And as we all understand, I suppose, Zazen is really big. It's even bigger than zazen. And it's not, this is what you always hear, I guess, that zazen is not a practice that we do that's something other than everything else we do.

[02:14]

Also, it's not a practice that we're looking for specific results from. Zazen is just life itself. And if we understand life itself, then we know Zazen is life and death. Zazen is being completely present in the middle of our bright, awakened life as it really is. So that's the sort of biggest context. That's how Dogen understands Zazen. That's how we usually understand it in Soto Zen. I'm sure that the teachers here are speaking about our practice in that way. And that's the widest circle of understanding our practice. But also, it can be useful and beneficial to see our practice in smaller circles. We can think of zazen as meditation. We can talk about meditation techniques.

[03:18]

We can try to improve our meditation practice. Also, it's not a bad idea to think about our mind and our emotions and how we could live. with our unruly minds and twisted hearts in ways that are maybe a little more peaceful, a little more loving, a little less confused, a little less reactive. So certainly all of these things, these smaller circles, are part of our practice too. And so it's a really good idea to study these things and think about them, work with them. But the point of our never forgetting and keeping coming back over and over again to the widest circle is that when we keep coming back to that, we're developing a kind of very large faith and confidence. And when you start with that faith and confidence in your life, in the process of your life,

[04:26]

when you start with a sort of basic appreciation of the mere fact that you are alive and that that's extraordinary. And not only that, but you're alive and you're not alone in being alive. You're alone. You're not alone at all. You're with others. You're alive with others. And you realize, wow. This is a fantastic reality. I am alive, and I am alive with others. I'm alive in a world where I'm joined with others. When you keep coming back over and over again to that, then you can make your efforts to improve your meditation and work with your emotions with a lightheartedness and with a kind of sense of peacefulness. You don't need to be full of desperation and self-judgment. as you otherwise might be if you thought that there was something basically wrong and you had to fix it. So you don't have to worry so much about how you're doing or whether or not you're doing the practice right.

[05:34]

And you can take some delight in the process of being yourself and of dealing with all your various troubles and confusions that probably will go on and on. It's okay. You don't have to be so worried about that. So anyway, that's my little context talk. So now we get to the five hindrances, which is a traditional list from the Pali canon of the top five ways in which we get distracted in our meditation practice. But also we could extend this and think of the five hindrances not only as distractions in our meditation practice, but also as hindrances in our lives in general. Ways that we get messed up in our lives in general. So that the traditional list is five hindrances, but maybe you have 55 hindrances.

[06:39]

Or 5,005 hindrances. And so that could be an interesting exercise for you to write up your top 55 hindrances. But the traditional list is limited only to five. And perhaps many of the other 55,000 would be actually subsets of these five. But anyway, I'm impressed with this list of five. Pretty astute. And you've got to be impressed with the ancient Buddhist pundits who more than 2,000 years ago, more than 2,500 years ago, were probably the first psychologists. And it is still impressive today how accurate and discriminating they were when it comes to understanding and dealing with the tricky, sneaky human mind. So the five hindrances are first, sense-desire.

[07:47]

Second, ill will, irritation, anger, so on. Third, laziness, fatigue, sloth, torpor, sometimes they call it. The fourth, restlessness and worry, anxiety. And the last one is doubt. So those are the five hindrances. I looked them up in Pali. I might not be pronouncing these correctly, but in Pali. Kamachanda, Vyapada, Tinamida, Uddacha, Kukucha, and Vichikitsa. Doubt. So when you consider these five, think about them for a minute, you see that there's a kind of pattern or rhythm in them.

[08:51]

It seems like there are two pairs. The first two is a pair, the second two is a pair, and then a third element. So sense, desire, and ill will really go together. I think you can see that. They're the opposites of each other, but they're kind of the same thing seen from two different... coming at them from two different angles. Sense, desire... is wanting something. Sensual. Maybe being obsessed with it. You need to have it. You've got to have it. If you have it, you really hate to lose it. And if you have it and don't lose it, you probably need more of it. Sense desire. Ill will is wanting something that's there to be eliminated. to be removed, to get out of the way. Maybe obsession with getting rid of something or getting away from it.

[09:55]

So you can see there's two sides of the same coin. What for one person is an object of desire, for another person is an object of aversion. But this quality of obsession and of radical dissatisfaction, needing something, that's not the case now. The second pair also are opposites. Laziness or torpor. We're bored. We're lazy. We're just worn out, exhausted. No motivation. Or the opposite. Restlessness, worry, anxiety. We're completely wired. We can't sit still. Our mind's jumping all over the place. We're doing a million things. We start something and we start something else, and we start something else. There's no focus. There's just a jumpy energy all over the place. The opposite. Instead of being, you know, we just can't stop running around.

[11:02]

So those are these two pairs, and then the two pairs also seem in some way to be related when you think about them, not only in your mind, but also when you consider these experiences, because these are experiences you probably had, all these. When you think about what it's like, you realize that in the end the whole thing comes down to being caught and spun around by some kind of rough, uneven, clutching kind of energy. Spun around by what you like and spun around by what you don't like, by your obsessions, Bund around so much that you're exhausted from the effort or completely wired and nervous with this constant onslaught of rough, jagged likes and dislikes. Anyway, the whole thing seems pretty unhappy-making. It's not a pleasant situation.

[12:07]

You're not at ease. Definitely not at ease. You're not a satisfied person. You're not a happy person. You're not calm. when that's going on. And then the third element, or the last piece of this, is doubt. And you could think, in a way, actually, doubt is the basis of all of this. At bottom, you're not confident, you're not certain, you're not at ease with yourself, you don't really know who you are, you don't really know how you got where you are now and whether that's the place where you should be. You don't really know what is ultimately important to you or what you're really committed to. So naturally, when that is the underlying basis, when that's the deepest feeling in your heart, this jagged, rough, spinning around energy is going to be unleashed and it's going to make you either exhausted and unmotivated or

[13:16]

completely wired or full of obsession for needing this and that, that seems to be what you need to complete yourself, or the opposite. Get rid of this, get rid of that, I don't like it, it's ruining my life, and so on and so on and so on and on and on and on. So this is all sounding vaguely familiar, maybe, to you? You know what I'm talking about, this is not too esoteric. I think we all understand this perfectly well. So the five hindrances is not something from out of the blue, it's actually a pretty good in a very simple way of describing what actually is mostly our experience. Now, usually the hindrances are discussed technically in relation to meditation practice because in the classical discussions of meditation, in order to enter the meditative absorptions and states of actual meditation, you need to get rid of the hindrances. They can't be present at the time that meditation is present.

[14:20]

You have to suspend the five hindrances in order to meditate. So the hindrances are hindrances literally to meditation. So if they appear in your meditation, then you have to know what they are and be able to identify them and let go of them, each one, in order for you to actually meditate. In other words, where there's sloth and torpor, ill will, there can't be any meditation. And in Vipassana meditation retreats, which are based on this Pali canon style of meditation, probably some of you have done Vipassana retreats, you will typically hear talks about the 500th. It's a topic that always comes up in a retreat because... That's what you're dealing with. When you're trying to meditate, you've got to deal with these five hindrances. But as I said, it's also useful and maybe in a way more salient to think of the five hindrances not in relation to meditation specifically, but in a wider sense as something that arises all the time.

[15:33]

And that our hindrances to our clarity and our loving hearts and are just having a happy life, whether we're meditating or not. The Pali word for hindrance is nivarana. Nivarana. Not to be confused with nirvana. It's not the same as nirvana. Nivarana. The word nivarana actually means covering. A hindrance is like a mind covering. or heart covering. And this implies that the mind or the heart are naturally, that is, you know, in their natures, peaceful and open. But they get covered up with these tendencies and the brightness is covered over and it doesn't

[16:39]

peep through. So the brightness is there but it's covered over. So this tells you that the general feeling of practicing with the hindrances is not identifying something and then violently eliminating it from yourself but rather like gently polishing something or wiping something to uncover something that by its nature is pure, wants to shine, wants to open. If only it would be allowed to do so, it would do so naturally. And this is something that you find in the earliest Buddhist literature. There's a short sutta, I think, that's in the Udana collection of the Pali Canon, which begins with the line,

[17:41]

It says, this is the Buddha talking. The Buddha says, This mind, O monastics, is luminous, only it is covered with adventitious defilements from without. So that's there, that idea of the mind as luminous, as pure, as bright, as beautiful. is there in the earliest literature. And it's the source of the later Mahayana doctrine of original enlightenment or Buddha nature, which, you know, is expanded. That idea which just peeps up here and there in the Pali literature becomes one of the main themes of the Mahayana literature. And it's so important in Zen practice. In Zen practice. Buddha nature or original awakening especially for Dogen is a crucial thought.

[18:47]

So the subtle but essential point about the five hindrances is the same subtle and essential point that seems to pop up everywhere in the Buddhist teachings. Possibly it's the only point in the whole Buddhist teaching. And it is that the hindrances are not things or states, reified states. They're not things that exist objectively that you're supposed to ferret out and once you find it, get rid of it. They're not that kind of thing. Neither is anything else. A hindrance is a hindrance not because of what it is, but because of what you think it is. That's a really important point. It's not what it is, it's what you think it is that's the problem.

[19:55]

In other words, sense, desire, ill will, and all the rest could be hindrances. But they could also be meditation objects. They could definitely bind you. but also they could be a means toward your freedom. And you could actually meditate on anger or sense desire in the same way that you meditate on your breath. Just pay attention to it, be present with it, let it arise, and let it pass away. And when you can work with the hindrances like that, then they're not hindrances anymore. It's just the flow of the experiences of your life, just what's coming and going in your life, like everything else, that arises from nowhere and it disappears into nowhere, that's what's happening all the time, whether it's sense desire or nirvana.

[21:06]

So what makes it a hindrance is exactly that you're not able to be present with it, that you're caught by it, that you're spun around by it, that you believe in it and you believe in the story that you've created around it. That's what makes it a hindrance. So the basic practice with all the five hindrances is just to know what it is, to be present with it, to let it come, let it go, and avoid the hook that gets you caught with it. So if you're meditating on the breath and all of a sudden your mind is full of anger, you suddenly think of somebody and you're really mad at them and you hate them and you're going on and on, then you would say, well, that's a hindrance because it's keeping me from what I decided to do is meditate. I'm not meditating now. I'm obsessed with this person. But if at that moment... when that arises in your mind, when you're meditating, you turn your attention to it.

[22:10]

That is, not to the story of what he did and said and why it was wrong and so on and so on, but to the actual feeling in your body and in your underlying, your thoughts of anger. Then even though it's unpleasant, not as nice probably as being with the breathing, it becomes an object of meditation. And it actually can be an aid to your practice. So this is the main thing. A hindrance is only a hindrance when we believe in it and all the stories around it. When we actually face it, investigate it at some depth, bring it into our practice, then the very same thing becomes a meditation object. So, as I said, this is true of all the Buddhist lists and all the Buddhist... and of every single thing in our mind and outside our mind, nothing is actually anything in particular. Things seem frozen into being what they are according to our attitudes about them.

[23:19]

Even something that we would all agree is really good, like love, can be bad if we take hold of it in the wrong way. And so the reverse is true. Something that we might think is bad, like ill will, can be beneficial if we can hold it with mindfulness in our practice. So now I want to focus in a little bit more on the first entrance, sense desire. Kamachanda, sense desire. Kama or karma, as we all know, means mostly action, usually volitional action, and particularly any kind of stickiness, defilement, or confusion within action. Action includes thoughts, words, or deeds.

[24:22]

So that's kama. And chanda means desire, the strong impulse to grab and hold on to something. But the term kamachanda is usually understood specifically as sense desire, desire for objects of the five senses, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and the body or the touch. So when you say sense desire is a hindrance, it's a little misleading, though, because it may imply that if you want to get rid of the hindrance of sense desire, you need to get rid of... pleasure, any pleasure taken in the realm of sensual experience. And some Buddhists might look at it that way, might think, oh, it's really bad, it's dangerous to have any pleasure, sensual pleasure, because the hook would be there and you have to be careful. And maybe that's true, but it can be a little bit overdone. Because the reality is that sensual experience is an indelible part of

[25:30]

being a human consciousness. There's no way you're not going to have sensual experience. That's the whole living in the whole world is one essential experience after another. So you're going to have these experiences and there would be no point in finding the whole thing distasteful. It would be like hating life. So the question would be how could you affirm and appreciate these experiences in a good way without being spun around by them So they end up being a problem. And I think we all know that sense desire can definitely be a problem. If sense desire were in and of itself the problem, then the most efficient way of getting rid of it and all the other hindrances would be suicide. Just do away with your life and then everything's fine. But the Buddha did not recommend this. Buddha's idea of nirvana was not suicide and your life.

[26:35]

No. Actually, the Buddha's thought on that was that suicide would be more pain and suffering. So in other words, this is not about eliminating your life. It's about understanding your life and opening to it. So sense desire as a hindrance is sense desire that is inappropriate, out of scale, obsessive, impossible, and will therefore lead you down a path of trouble, suffering, and a feeling of loss and deprivation and misery. And this can be explained by my teaching, which I call the 10th ice cream cone. A very simple concept. Let's suppose that you like ice cream cones a lot. A lot of people do like ice cream cones. So you like ice cream cones a lot.

[27:39]

You really would like to have one. Probably you like them so much that there are times when you've had a second ice cream cone. But if someone somehow was able to force you to eat ten ice cream cones in succession, pretty guaranteed that by the tenth, probably it wouldn't take you that long, maybe the fourth or the fifth or the sixth ice cream cone, that which was an object of desire would now become painful and uncomfortable and unhappy-making. And of course, if you still loved ice cream cones, but you were lactose intolerant, or you were in a place where ice cream cones were entirely unavailable, this also would be a problem for you. So this is a case of sense desire leading to suffering.

[28:41]

On the other hand, if someone gave you an ice cream cone and you really liked ice cream cones and you ate the ice cream cone and you were happy eating it and then when it was gone, you were fine with that, it would not be a hindrance. So the problem is not sensual experience per se. The problem is wanting too much, or wanting too often, or wanting too obsessively, or wanting objects that are either unavailable to you or toxic. That's the problem. In fact, I would say, from my experience, that an increase rather than a decrease and sensual pleasure comes about with practice. This is because the mind and body become more aware and more subtle when you practice zazen and mindfulness.

[29:49]

And this enables you to have an appreciation for very simple things, as well as complicated things. In other words, you have a greater range of what you can appreciate in a sensual realm. If you're willing simply to be present and aware and not be too much spun around by your likes and dislikes, then it's possible to find sensual pleasure in almost anything. Even the absence of the hindrance of sensual pleasure can be sensually pleasurable. You could be standing there and saying, you know, oh, this is nice. It feels good in the body just to be standing here, just to be hearing the sounds of traffic. That's essential pleasure. I don't want anything more than that, and that's wonderful.

[30:52]

What a pleasure to be alive right now in the body that hears and sees. and is delighted with the process of seeing and hearing. In other words, it can be a sensual pleasure just to be alive without any special stimulation in any moment. And even if the wine isn't too good, and the cheese is not the best, it's nice to taste something. It's nice to drink something. And should one happen to be somewhere where the wine and cheese actually is quite good, well, so much the better. I appreciate that. Once I was in Hawaii on the big island where everybody's very laid back. And I saw a sign that said, there are two ways to be satisfied. Get more and better stuff or reduce your desires.

[32:00]

It's very practical teaching, although I think... there's even more to it than that because in general, the more desire there is, it's very logical, right? The more desire there is, the less fulfillment there is, right? The less desire there is, the more fulfillment there is. So this is very, very good. This can save you a lot of money. On, say, wine and cheese. Yes. and the many other requirements of a pleasant life in California. In other words, what an advantage to be content and happy with what is there and not to be thinking all the time about what is not there and being miserable as a result. Not to have to feel like you've been cheated out of something.

[33:04]

but just to enjoy something that's there. So this is a very practical thing to cultivate and also quite economical. Now, economic hardship, where there's crushing poverty, where there's not enough to eat, where you're not protected from the cold and the elements, where you're worried about where are you going to sleep tonight and what are you going to eat tomorrow, this is really difficult. But where there is satisfaction of basic needs, there could be complete contentment and happiness. And you might not need a lot of extra. In the context of meditation practice, in which the method is to focus on the mind and on an object of meditation, usually we're focusing on the breathing or the feeling of the body.

[34:14]

You can see how all of a sudden, to be wanting ice cream cones and wine and cheese while you're sitting there would be really distracting. You would need to have a certain measure of contentment just to sit there and meditate. And in fact, Once you do practice meditation, and I'm sure that many of you know what I'm speaking about here, there's another kind of pleasure, sensual pleasure, that arises in the meditation practice itself. I mean, technically it's a non-sensual pleasure. It's considered to be much more subtle than sensual pleasure, but it's pleasurable in the body. In fact, the pleasures of meditation are actually more pleasant than sensual pleasures. I really think that. I really feel like it's really wonderful and pleasant to practice meditation.

[35:17]

And I feel this way not only because I'm getting old, because I also felt it when I was young. So it's not just that I'm getting old. To be able to enjoy a quiet mind... to take pleasure in silence, to enjoy the ease of the breath, to enjoy the feeling of lightness and zest in the body when you're meditating. These are the things that will arise when there's a measure of concentration in your meditation practice. These are wonderful, beautiful experiences, and they don't arise until the rougher sort of sensual, desire is quieted and eventually passes away. In fact, the meditation manuals say that meditation states temporarily suppress sensual desire and other hindrances. Temporarily.

[36:18]

As soon as the meditation is over, of course, all the sensual desires come back. Therefore, if someone is... especially bothered by the hindrances, let's say, in this case, sensual desire, and there are people who are really disturbed, deeply disturbed by the pain of sensual desires, that person could become addicted to meditation because it suppresses the pain temporarily. And then they might want to continue meditating forever and ever as much as they possibly could. More retreats, more often, longer retreats, because I feel good in the retreat. And when the retreat is over, I'm miserable. But this is really impossible, because you can't be in meditation, retreats all the time, and in meditation states all the time. So, meditation is not the way to

[37:29]

find real peace within the five hindrances. The way to find real peace within the five hindrances, to turn the hindrances into openings instead of painful things that we would like to eliminate, is not by fleeing to meditation practice, but by understanding our life. And that's a bad word, because it sounds like, oh, now I understand something, like in school. I don't mean like that. I mean having a feeling for your life, a view of your life, an approach to your life that is in harmony with the way things actually go, rather than... in harmony with the way you have been conditioned to see things.

[38:34]

So what we call meditation practice is very useful in developing such a feeling, such a view, such an approach. And not only meditation practice, but everything else that's done here at Zen Center, rituals, discussions, classes, all of that is helpful. finding that view, that approach. And that's why in Zen practice, though we do a lot of Zazen, we try not to get too fixated on it. Or think that Zazen is the answer to everything. No. Zazen is just what we do. We just do that. So... Let's just take a minute, as I'm finished here, to return to our own breath and body and to think about what I've been saying.

[39:50]

So ask yourself the question and just see what comes up for you. Is there some difficulty in sensual desire? Where is your sticking point, if there is one, in relation to sensual desire? And what about your ability to grow or change in this regard?

[41:06]

Can you see a way forward for you to overcome this sticky point? And maybe looking back over time, how has this changed in you? If you've been practicing for a while, has practice had any influence? How's it different for you? Maybe a long time ago you had a certain relationship to sensual desire, and now it's different. What's the difference? So those are things to keep thinking about.

[42:39]

Some texts will list antidotes to the different hindrances. I haven't been talking about that this morning. But in all the lists of antidotes, the most important antidotes, the sort of universal antidotes to all hindrances and all problems, always come down to two things. Number one, receiving good teachings and putting them into practice. And number two, having good friends with whom you can do this. In our sort of highly individualistic culture, we think, well, I ought to be able to do this on my own. But in Buddhism, it was always understood, no, that would be folly.

[43:47]

You really need other people. You need to associate with other people and the people who will encourage you in exactly these ways. Because it will be easy to find people who will encourage you in other ways. And it will be difficult in the midst of those people to... to do the work you want to do in practice. So therefore, it's very important to be around others who are making the same kind of effort. So the teachings and your effort to practice them and also others. So I'm saying this because it actually is the universal antidote to the hindrances, but also because Nancy told me that there's a membership drive. She said... She said, I'm not saying you should give your whole talk about the membership guide. But at least at the end, if you would say a little something about it, I would appreciate it. I don't know if you know Nancy, but she's a good friend of mine. But really, it's true.

[44:51]

I am so impressed with the Zen Center. Because, I mean, where are you going to find a place where people are actually... pretty serious and have some depth of spiritual practice. But they're not fanatics. And they're actually open to a variety of points of view. I mean, where do you find that? It actually, I mean, it's stunning to me, frankly. It's stunning to me how rare this is. This should be the most common thing. You should find this everywhere. It's a shame that it's so almost unique to the Zen Center. But it's true. So if you have any hindrances and you would like to overcome them, go and join the Zen Center. That's what I was really trying to say. Become a member. Give money.

[45:52]

Support the Zen Center. And even if you actually like your hindrances and you are perfectly happy to go down the drain as long as you are enjoying yourself... with your sensual desire and your ill will and so on. There are people who really love their anger and all that. Even if you feel that way, because you care about your friends and want to make this space available for others, not you, but others who might be interested, join anyway and give money and support the Zen Center. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:53]

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