In meditation, we often hear about the 5 hindrances. These are the reactivities to what is arising in our experience. These are traditionally called sensory desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry and doubt. These are relational quality's that engage the objects arising in what we like to think of as our awareness. Sensory desire is the desire for particular sensory objects, ill will is an aversion or hatred towards certain sensory experience, sloth and torpor is a lack of engagement with what is happening, restlessness and worry is an over-engagement with what is happening and doubt is the sense of not knowing how to be with a certain sensory experience. So these probably sound quite familiar as these do not just arise in meditation these are the aspects of our ability to relate that tend to lead towards dysfunction in any relationship be it meditation or family, intimate relationships, friends, etc.
The process of meditation is the getting to know these intimately, understand their triggers. Rather than engaging the hindrances with the hindrances which are often how we go about trying to correct these relational issues we intend to be gentle, caring and give them permission to be. It is the process of being your own therapist in that you gently allow what is arising. Whatever is arising has already arisen, we notice it and then judge its value after it has already arisen. These hindrances are very much tied to how we have been taught to relate to ourselves from our family/cultural and religious environment. We have the ego which is our basic organizational app and then there is the organizational app of our family/cultural and religious environment, the superego. In meditation, we are taking the time to become very familiar with this dynamic of ego/superego. Taking the time to gently digest it, taste its textures. We become aware of the many levels that we have got ourselves tangled up in the views and opinions, how we try to defend our sense of value either by going along with the views or opinions of the environment or rebelling if they are not satisfying or fitting to our values.
What often happens is we notice our faulty expressions but our virtues can often go unnoticed. When we approach meditation from the place of meeting and becoming familiar rather than taking a position before we give ourselves the time and space to actually notice and be nourished by our virtues. We can think of our virtues simply as the opposite of the hindrances. Equanimity, gentleness and care, attentiveness, calm and composure and wisdom. So in this approach as taught by Jason Siff that I have been working with over these past 5years, and I express as my own understanding of this is how it has unfolded for me. The intention to meditate is the meditation, this intention is gentle and caring, the experience has permission to unfold as it wishes, if this becomes too much we are able to ground ourselves with the contact of our hands touching, the contact with the ground the breath etc. We may drift into habitual meditation patterns conditioned from previous practices, that is okay. By not intending to follow the practice we may become aware of the intentions that the practice was built upon. I know for myself my meditation practice had been built upon an aversion to my experience, to my sense of self, I was wanting to be other than this. As we slowly digest our internal relationships to ourselves and the world that we see, we begin to mature into a gentleness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. With this sense of maturing there is a natural understanding of ourselves as a story and our part in a larger story. This freedom of seeing the story, gives us the ability to build a new world built upon virtue, where we through compassion of how the structures of the different stories from the beginning of time when not seen clearly with awareness create conflict and judgment, the stories become positions we take and defend instead of being seen as conditioning blocks based upon ignorance of the conditioning process.
This new world built upon understanding there is suffering, and when suffering is not understood there is dysfunction. We intend to meet experience with gentleness and care, this intention matures as it grows to understand the conditioning process until it matures into equanimity. This gentleness and care becomes the ground for our relationship to ourselves and the environment that we live in, as we meet ourselves and the world with gentleness and care our experience become mindful, when this mindfulness is mature and able to allow experience it matures into a calm and composure with all that arises, this gives rise for the potential to notice when we are self-ing and not self-ing the experience. This can give rise to a deep peace and freedom. When this freedom matures self and not-self are seen as conditions. Position-less living unfolds.
This is a humbling path, as we take a close look at ourselves and accept our imperfections. May all beings mature and find freedom.
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