Now & at Death

When you try to get the mind in concentration, there are five qualities that can get in the way, five ways of thinking. They’re called hindrances, nīvaraṇa: sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt. But these aren’t just obstacles to concentration. When the Buddha talks about the things you have to watch out for when you’re about to die, it’s the same five qualities, because they can pull you down. So as you’re getting the mind into concentration, you have to see the importance of fighting these things off.

The Buddha lists different techniques for dealing with hindrances. If you see the hindrance as something that you want to get past, then the techniques work. If you decide that you like your hindrances, no technique is going to work. So you have to see the dangers posed by these things.

One of the big ones is that if these things take over your mind when you die, you’re totally out of control. Your mind can pull itself to places it wouldn’t want to go to when it’s in its right mind. But, of course, when you’re dying, it’s very rare that people are in their right minds. They’re being pushed out of the body. They’ll grab at anything. So you want to train the mind so that no matter what, you’re not going to give in to these thoughts.

When the Buddha talks about sensual desire, there are lots of ways you can think about, one, the object of desire. This is why we have the contemplation of the body, dividing it into 32 parts. Or thinking about how the body gets old and decrepit and then finally decays after it dies. You ask yourself, “Is this body something I really want to get involved with?”

As the Buddha recommended, if you find, when you’re dying, that you’re still attached to human sensual pleasures, remind yourself that there are better sensual pleasures higher up in the deva realms. And if you’re going to be reborn there, it’s not the case that you can’t practice. Sometimes you hear it said that only in the human realm can you practice because the devas are too heedless. Well, there are heedless devas, but there are heedful devas as well. You’d do better to practice with them.

As for ill will, the Buddha says that even if bandits were carving you up into little pieces with a two-handled saw, you should still have goodwill for them. Protect your goodwill in the same way that a mother would protect her only child.

Sometimes you hear that image used in another way, saying that you should love all beings as a mother would love her only child. But that’s impossible. And it’s not what the Buddha is saying. He’s saying something more realistic: You should protect your goodwill as a mother would protect her only child.

Remember back in those days there was no social safety net. If a woman had one child, her future in this life depended on that child. So she would take care of him with her life. In the same way, you should take care of your goodwill with your life, no matter what other people do or say. You’ve got to maintain your goodwill toward them. If it happens that you die, if you die with goodwill, you’re going to go to a better place than if you die with ill will. So think of goodwill as your protection.

It can often happen as you’re dying that thoughts come up about people who abused you, mistreated you. You have to let it go. Just say, “Well, that’s in the past. I don’t want to go back there. I don’t have to settle old scores.” Because with scores — say, when you’re playing a game, like basketball — you know when the beginning point was, and you know who did what in the course of the game, and that way you can keep a score. But with all these many lifetimes we go through, where did the game begin? Who knows what the score is? So rather than settling scores, just get out of the game entirely.

As for sleepiness, that will be a big problem as you’re dying. So you have to learn how to resist it now. Do what you can to wake yourself up. The Buddha recommends reciting in your mind any passages you’ve memorized of the Dhamma. If you’re sitting alone, you can repeat them aloud. If that doesn’t work, rub your limbs, pull your earlobes, go out, look at the stars. Do walking meditation if you can. If you’re still sleepy then, he says, go to sleep, but make up your mind that as soon as you wake up, you’re going to get right up. Because sometimes when we go to sleep, we like to forget the fact that we’re going to get up. We just plow ourselves into the oblivion of sleep. But remind yourself, “I’m here temporarily, and as soon as I wake up, I’ll get up.” Have that kind of active attitude. That becomes a good habit.

As for restlessness and anxiety, restlessness has to do with fear for the future; anxiety has to do with fear of the results of bad things you can remember having done in the past. In both cases, you have to remember: You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but you do know that unexpected things will happen, and worrying about them ahead of time is not going to help you. But you can prepare by getting the mind more mindful and alert, so that when unexpected things come up, you’ll be quick to figure out a solution. So you need to meditate to cultivate more mindfulness and alertness. That’s the responsible way to prepare.

When someone’s dying, the Buddha says to ask them, “Are you worried about your family? Are you worried about things you’re leaving behind? Well, it’s too late now. You can’t do anything about them. Focus your mind on what you have to do now. Your responsibility now is to take care of the state of your mind.”

Now, these instructions apply when you’re dying, and they apply right now as you’re sitting here meditating.

As the ajaans like to say, when you meditate, you’re preparing to die, because things will come up in the mind like this, and they’ll pull you away. The image the Buddha gives is of a house on fire. The wind comes along, the fire latches on to the wind, and it gets taken far distances. Whatever you latch on to as you die can take you who knows where, so you want to be careful. Maintain your state of mind as settled and as gathered together as you can.

Finally, with doubt — this has to do both with doubt about your own ability to practice, and with doubt about the teachings — just remind yourself that you’re not going to arrive at any certainty about these questions until you give the teachings try. Sometimes we use our doubts as an excuse not to try. But the only way you’re going to know the truth is if you actually try. Commit yourself to doing the practice, then reflect on the results, making adjustments where you have to, and keep on doing it. That’s how you can overcome your doubts.

So those are some specific techniques you need to learn to use now so that when the time comes to leave the body, you’ll have a wide range of techniques to use not to get pulled away to places you don’t want to go.

The Buddha gives five techniques to deal with distractions in general. The first is that if you notice your mind has slipped off, just come back. Come back to the breath. You’ve got to ask yourself, “Was the breath as comfortable as it could have been? Was it too weak?” Sometimes, when it’s very weak, you lose track of it. Other times, it’s just simply not comfortable. Ask yourself, “What would be a more comfortable way of breathing?” Allow your mind to use its imagination to think about the breath coming in parts of the body that you don’t usually think of it coming in and out of. See what that does.

The second technique—if the mind keeps going back to that topic—is to ask yourself, “If I actually acted on that, what would be the results?” In other words, look for the drawbacks. Most often, the things that pull you away are pulling you away to do things that would not be in your own best interest. So focus on the drawbacks.

The image the Buddha gives here is of a young person, fond of beauty, looking in the mirror and suddenly discovering that she has a dead snake around her neck. She’d have a strong sense of revulsion and would want to get rid of that snake as fast as possible. Well, in the same way, you should have the attitude that any unskillful state of mind that comes into you is going to harm you down the line, harm you right now. So if you can see the drawbacks and realize that whatever allure those thoughts may have, you’re not going to fall for them. Get them off your neck right away. That attitude can release you from them.

The third technique, if that doesn’t work, is simply not to pay attention to your thoughts. Think of yourself as being in a large room. You’re in one corner with work to do. Well, let your thoughts be off in another corner. They can have whatever conversation they want, but you don’t have to take an interest, you don’t have to get involved. Just because a thought comes into your mind doesn’t mean it’s yours or that it’s worth looking into.

The fourth technique is to realize that any distractive thinking requires some energy. There’s going to be tension in some part of the body that enables the thought to stay in your mind. Find where that tension is and breathe through it. Relax it.

If none of these techniques work, then you need the sledgehammer—as the Buddha says, beat down your mind with your mind. Clench your teeth, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and tell yourself, “I will not think that thought.” The Thai ajaans recommend repeating a meditation word really fast—buddhobuddhobuddhobuddh buddho—like machine gun fire to jam the circuits.

This is the method that requires the most force, and it may not be able to last very long, but at least it clears the air for a while. And it establishes the fact that this is not a type of thinking you want to get involved with—because it’s that change of heart that’s the most important part.

As long as you like your hindrances, even the best technique in the world is not going to work. But when you see that they’re dangerous, you can change your allegiance — in other words, change your desire. We’ve been going with our desires for sensuality, our desires for settling old scores, the way we like our sleepiness sometimes, we like our worries, we’re proud of our doubts. If that’s still your attitude, you’re not going to be able to get past them. But if you begin to realize that these are not your friends, and that what you want instead is a state of mind that’s still, solid, clear, all around; and you realize that these things are simply getting in the way, and they have nothing to offer, and they pose dangers not only now, but also down the line: Then you’re more likely to use the Buddha’s techniques and get good results out of them.

So see these hindrances as dangerous. The Buddha also lists many of them as fetters, attitudes that keep you tied to dying and being reborn and dying and being reborn many, many times. So the consequences are dire. And it’s an important issue right now. Are you going to side with them, or are you going to side with your desire for true happiness? Because it is a matter of desire versus desire.

Some people say if you desire concentration, the desire is going to get in the way. But if you don’t desire concentration, how are you going to do the steps that are needed to get there? The Buddha lists right effort—which includes the desire to give rise to skillful qualities, to abandon unskillful qualities—as part of the path.

So instead of thinking of the Dhamma as opposed to your desires, realize that you’ve got different competing desires inside. And it’s up to you to decide which of your desires you want to identify with. You should see that it’s in your best interest to identify with the ones that would lead to your long-term welfare and happiness. That’s when you’re wise.

So right now, let your desire for stillness be prominent. Your desire for alertness, mindfulness, and ardency: Let that be prominent. As for other thoughts, they’re hindrances. They’re obstacles. Don’t let them get in your way.