The Allure of the Hindrances

The texts say that there are five hindrances to concentration: sensual desire, ill will, sloth & torpor, restlessness & anxiety, and doubt. Each of them has its allure. That’s why we fall for them. Each has its advocate—or advocates—in the committee of your mind. As soon as it comes, they’ll tell you that this particular hindrance is not a hindrance. It’s actually something reasonable and right. You have to understand what those arguments are, what their allure is, and how it’s false, how it’s lying to you, so that you can get past it.

With sensual desire, the allure is obvious. It promises fun, games, and entertainment. This is why the primary way of dealing with that particular hindrance is to look at the negative side of whatever it focuses on.

Contemplation of the body: You think of the human body and an image immediately comes to mind, attractive in one way or another. You’ve got to realize that that attractive image is hiding a lot of things that are very unattractive, things that are going to be involved in whatever pursuit of the body you may want to engage in. After all, sometimes the issue is not so much the object of the desire, it’s the fantasies you have around that object, the stories, the narratives you build around it. In cases like that, you have to see how those narratives are lies. Sometimes that requires looking at the object of the lust, to see how the narratives are built around nothing of any worth. Sometimes it requires looking straight at the narratives.

Think of the case of King Pasenadi. He wanted his queen to say that she loved him more than she loved herself. But she was no fool. She said, “No, there’s nobody I love more than myself. And how about you? Anyone you love more than yourself?” What he wanted out of people in his sexual fantasies was something he himself would never give to another person. So the fantasy was an obvious lie. You have to see that the fun and games that are promised are not all that fun, not all that enjoyable, and they carry a lot of negative things in their wake.

As for ill will, it usually dresses itself up as righteous anger or a desire for justice. But remember, what does justice depend on? It depends on a story that has a beginning point and an end point, and clear delineation of who did what, who made the first bad move. But when you think about rebirth, about all the many, many lifetimes you’ve been through, you realize that this current installment of this story is not the beginning. We go way back—so far back that you have no idea where it began. And what’s the score right now? There’s no way of keeping score. That’s what a lot of our ideas of justice entail: keeping score, setting the score right.

There’s also the question of your perspective on the issue. It’s very easy to look at your own actions in a good light and turn a bad light on the other person’s actions, no matter how well-intentioned that person may have been.

So again, the allure is lying to you. You have to see through those lies. Realize that if something good is going to be done, it doesn’t have to be done to settle scores. Help people who’ve been abused, but you don’t necessarily have to punish those who did the abuse. What would be genuinely helpful? Thinking in that way changes the discussion entirely. It takes it out of the realm of ill will and into the realm of goodwill. What would be wise to do right now so that the bad back-and-forth doesn’t continue?

Sometimes, if you’re one of the people involved, it means that you just have to say, “I’ve got to stop playing along with this game. It’s a mud-slinging contest. There’s no winner here.” Just get out.

The third hindrance, sloth and torpor, usually presents itself as a sign that the body really needs rest. Your mind is tired; your body is tired.

That’s something that has to be tested—because there are cases where you really are tired, and you really do need to rest. But there are also times when that’s a lie. That’s why the Buddha gives you all those different ways of testing your sleepiness.

If you’re focusing on the breath in one way that’s making you sleepy, well, change the way you breathe. Or change the topic of meditation. Try something that engages the mind more. Think of all the 32 parts of the body. Visualize them. Ask yourself where they are in your body right now. Breathe deeply into that part of the body. Then move on to the next part, the next part. See what that does.

You can try goodwill for all beings in all directions, thinking about all the different kinds of beings that are out there. Ask yourself, “Is there anybody out there that you have trouble having goodwill for?” There are probably a lot of people. But remind yourself, “What does goodwill mean?” It doesn’t mean, “May you be happy doing whatever you’re doing.” It means, “If you’ve been misbehaving, may you see the error of your ways and be willing and happy to change.” That’s one way to test sloth and torpor.

Another way is just to get up and walk around, do walking meditation. If it’s nighttime, go out and look up at the stars. Wash your face. Pace back and forth for a while. If you’re still sleepy while doing walking meditation, that’s a sign you really do need to rest. But you’ve got to test this one first, because the mind likes to lie to you. Sometimes some deeper issue is coming up, it’s about to come to the surface, and part of your mind just doesn’t want to face it. So its trick is to make you sleepy. So test it first.

As for restlessness and anxiety, this is the kind of thinking where you’re worried about the future or concerned about mistakes you made in the past. Worries about the future tend to dress themselves up as being responsible. “There are things you really do have to worry about. Now you’ve got some free time. Don’t waste that free time. Devote it to some good worries.” Well, it is possible to think about a future issue and come up with a solution. But often a lot of our worry is just going over and over and over again, hacking away, hacking away with a dull knife, not cutting through anything at all.

You have to remind yourself that the real responsible response is to get the mind in good shape, where it can think clearly, develop its mindfulness, develop its alertness, so that whatever happens in the future — and there are many things that will happen in the future that you can’t anticipate — whatever happens in the future, you’ll be prepared: quick to see what’s wrong, quick to see what unexpected things have happened, in a better position to come up with a solution.

The image that the ajaans in Thailand like to use is a knife. As I said, you’re hacking away, hacking away, but nothing cuts through, because the knife is dull. You’ve got to sharpen it. So you’re actually being responsible by doing the meditation. That’s sharpening the knife. Your discernment gets sharper; your mindfulness, your alertness, and your concentration get stronger. That way, when a problem comes up, you can see right through it. So you really are being responsible when you meditate rather than worrying.

As for doubt, that presents itself as the “honest hindrance.” You really don’t know. Is this a path that you can follow? Is this a path that actually will take you to a good place? You don’t know.

Well, of course you don’t know. But you’re not going to know simply by sitting here, doubting. You’re going to know only if you give it a try.

There are two kinds of doubt. There’s the doubt that wants to know, and that’s not a hindrance. That’s part of your motivation for practicing. Then there’s the doubt that doesn’t want to know. It’s just too lazy. It thinks about doing the work of the practice, how many years it might take, how it’s going to go against your preferences, your likes and your dislikes. It puts up a big wall saying, “I don’t want to know.” The wall is disguised with a sign that says, “This is the honest approach. I really don’t know.” The solution there is to remind yourself you’re going to know only if you give it a try, and give it a fair try.

I read an article one time in a newspaper, *The New York Times *of all things, in which the author was saying that he had actually tried mindfulness practice for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t work—as if a couple of weeks were enough to let you know whether it works or not. This is a path that requires that you give of yourself.

A lot of people will cite the Kalama Sutta, saying, “Well, the Buddha says, ‘Don’t believe anything you don’t already know.’” But that’s not what the Kalama Sutta says. What it actually says is, “Given that you don’t know, what’s the best way of going about coming to know?” You start, at the very least, with thoughts of goodwill. You know that this is a good practice. It’s good in and of itself, even if there is no such thing as karma or rebirth. The practice itself is an honorable practice. If there is karma and rebirth, then you create a state of mind that will create good karma that will lead to a good rebirth. So, either way, you’ve got your bases covered, and you come to know.

You have to observe to figure out whether a path is good or not. You have to put it into practice and see what qualities of mind it develops. If it helps to get rid of greed, aversion, and delusion, you’re heading in the right direction. You’ve got a good path. If there’s any resistance in your mind to getting rid of greed, aversion, and delusion, you have to ask yourself, “Why?”

Then you have to deal with the allure of greed, aversion, and delusion. Remind yourself of how these things look in other people. Pretty ugly. Well, that’s how they look in you. And you’ve been a slave to these things for who knows how long. Here’s your chance to overcome that slavery.

So if you’re really honest, you say, “I don’t know, but *I want *to know.” After all, the Buddha is teaching you the way to the end of suffering. He’s promising that. And this is something you don’t want to know?

So you have to turn the tables on the hindrances. Whatever allure they promise, turn the allure around.

The allure of enjoyment in sensual desire: Well, you’ve got the possible enjoyment of getting the mind into good states of concentration.

The desire for justice that’s used to make ill will alluring: Ask yourself instead, how would true goodness be established?

The need for rest that makes you fall for sloth and torpor: That has to be tested.

The idea of being responsible when you worry: Remind yourself that you’re really responsible when you do the meditation.

If you’re presented with the path to the end of suffering, the honest approach is to give it an honest try. Don’t let your doubts get in the way.

Those are some of the ways in which you can counter the allure of the hindrances. Now, your particular hindrances may come up with their own quick advocates. But it’s important that you learn how to come up with a quick response, because those quick and alluring statements whisper in the mind very fleetingly and then they disappear. They slip away because they don’t bear scrutiny. You have to be quick enough to catch them and have a quick response: Get back to work.

Now, in the beginning, the response may take a while. It may take some reasoning, figuring things out. But after a while, you’ll get your own quick responses, so that no matter what way the hindrances try to present themselves as alluring, you can give them a quick karate chop and get back to work.