The five hindrances

1. Definition

The Five Hindrances (Năm Triền cái) are five layers of obstruction in the mind that prevent us from entering concentration, and are listed as follows:

• Sensual desire – Ill will – Sloth and torpor – Restlessness – Doubt (Nghi).

According to the standard laid down by the Buddha, after attaining mindfulness with clear awareness for some time, the practitioner will eliminate the Five Hindrances in preparation for entering the first jhana. This is an indispensable stage, and also an accurate measure of our work of practice. If we achieve special spiritual states, but on checking find that we have still not finished with the Five Hindrances, we know at once that those strange states are not yet progress in the right direction of Buddhist meditative concentration; sometimes they are only temporary illusions. Eliminating the Five Hindrances belongs at once to the field of ethics (sensual desire, ill will), to wisdom (doubt), and to energy (sloth and torpor, restlessness).

Sensual desire

It has two meanings: first, greed that wants a great deal of material wealth for oneself, and second, lust. These are two basic hindrances of beings (which from another aspect are also called fetters). This hindrance is not simply passing desires that come at times and not at others, but truly a lasting structure lying in obstruction in the mind, making us constantly agitated and uneasy.

In ordinary life, sometimes we do not give rise to desire, but that does not mean desire is gone, because the hindrance of sensual desire remains intact within. This hindrance is invisible and hard to see; only when it meets a provoking condition does it pour out and urge us to do improper things. When this hindrance is present, our mind will be stirred when we see money, cars, a luxurious house; we will be stirred when we see an attractive person of the other sex. Even when we do not see these things, we can imagine them ourselves and crave and long for them.

Conversely, when the hindrance of sensual desire is eliminated, we have the joy of meditative concentration in itself, naturally feel light and at ease, and no longer bother about desires for material things or sensual beauty. Then we will find it laughable that we had such ordinary desires before, because they are meaningless and low. As long as we have not eliminated the hindrance of sensual desire, we keep thinking that material things or sensuality are pleasures. When we have eliminated it, we see how shameless and binding they are.

However, saying this does not mean that we can overcome sensual desire through meditative concentration alone. Meditative concentration is only the final condition. Before it, how much merit must be accumulated, how much will must be trained! Many people attain meditative concentration but still do not eliminate the hindrance of sensual desire, because from the beginning they never had the intention of giving up sensual desire.

Sometimes the precepts require the practitioner to live a simple life in accord with the ethic of non-greed. However, if a person does not skilfully guard his own mind, then even while living simply his thoughts still crave and dream of a luxurious life. Only when the hindrance of sensual desire is eliminated are we truly free with regard to material things and beauty.

Today, depraved films flood every corner and stir up people's sensual desire, causing countless wrongs, breakdowns and sufferings for society. Images of nakedness and sex on display corrupt the good hearts of the young. Even a practitioner, if he has no firm work of practice, will be shaken if he accidentally sees an image of a scantily dressed person in a book, a newspaper or an advertising billboard. The world today has become easygoing in letting everyone come into contact with sensual desire, and thereby has greatly increased the opportunities for the hindrance of sensual desire to develop dangerously. Practitioners must be equipped dozens of times more than in the past with awareness of keeping themselves unstained. The ways in which the Patriarchs taught ethics of purity are no longer enough for a world as full of indulgence in sensual desire as now. There must be many more advances in teaching ethics of purity for practitioners today.

One day humanity must strongly resist the kind of culture that provokes human sensual desire. Sensual desire is an instinct, a dangerous instinct, which must be controlled and not indulged. The West was mistaken in holding that people are free to satisfy sensual desire. The toxic culture of the West has spread and is destroying this world day by day. The world needs lucid and brave people who know how to stand up against such a filthy culture that provokes sensual desire.

We Vietnamese in particular, with weaker physique and small stature, need to save our energy for the work of building the country, the family and cultivating ourselves, and need more than anyone a healthy life with little sensual desire. But the depraved culture has pushed too many people into debauched, degenerate pleasure-seeking and the waste of their energy. That is also a cause of economic decline that prevents the country from ever catching up with humanity. Few would suspect that to build the economy we must first begin by building a healthy culture for the nation.

Ill will

Ill will (sân) means irritability and annoyance, and in a heavier sense, hatred. Ill will has a deep source in selfishness and envy. However, ill will is itself a very lasting structure in the inner mind and so is very hard to eliminate. We cannot use language to describe the state of ill will; we can only give a name to the state that makes us tense, dissatisfied, annoyed, hateful, agitated, uncomfortable, furious, and so on; the name is just that. In general, all the qualities listed above of the hindrance of ill will are opposite to the qualities of liberation, so a person who wants to practise for liberation must be determined to overcome ill will. As long as we still give rise to ill will, we must know we are still poor and inadequate; we must not justify ill will by any means, must not blame circumstances or the mistakes of others. It may also be that others have made mistakes and their mistakes affect us, within the scope of our responsibility, so we must take a stance. But the attitude of a person who has eliminated the hindrance of ill will is completely different from that of a person who has not.

A person who has not eliminated the hindrance of ill will becomes angry and reacts harshly because he feels he has been harmed, injured, offended. Others' mistakes cause us loss, and so we are furious. Ill will has its source in self-interest, which is why.

A person who has eliminated the hindrance of ill will sometimes remains silent before others' mistakes, and sometimes takes an attitude to express a view, but is not at all upset because his interests have been damaged; he only wants the other person not to go on making mistakes. Whether silent or expressing an attitude, the mind of one who is free of ill will is also very gentle, without a ripple of agitation or irritation. This is a very clear test for knowing whether we still have ill will.

But it is also not simply through practising meditative concentration that we can eliminate the hindrance of ill will. It must be that from many months and years before, we had perfected an inner mind that no longer hates anyone in the world. The work of clearing away this hatred is truly delicate and hard. It is also a sign of a genuine disciple of the Buddha. Sometimes a Bodhisattva acting against the grain manifests as a king commanding troops to fight the enemy, and of course must kill enemies, but in his heart he does not hate anyone at all; he does so only for the sake of the greater cause. It is like a judge who, in pronouncing a death sentence or a prison sentence on a criminal, is not troubled by love or hate, but is obliged only to deter or prevent the wrongdoing of a wicked person. Ordinarily a disciple of the Buddha must not hate anyone and must clear away the hatred in his own heart. It is precisely thanks to the merit of long practice in this way that later, entering meditative concentration, we will at some point eliminate the hindrance of ill will.

Sloth and torpor

One obstacle that a person practising meditation must labour to deal with is sleepiness, sloth and torpor.

In truth, sleep is an extremely important need of the body. Lacking sleep, a person's health and spirit will quickly decline. If a person is completely deprived of sleep, he may go mad and then die. The state of sleep helps the body restore its energy, cure latent illnesses and rebuild brain function. Ordinarily a person must sleep a certain amount of time according to each person's constitution.

However, when we need to be alert to sit in meditation, and to sit for a long time, the demand for sleep is an unpleasant thing. When the state of mindfulness with clear awareness is prolonged and the mind becomes deeply still, the need for sleep naturally disappears. The practitioner abides in mindfulness with clear awareness and does not feel sleepy even when staying up very late. But the practitioner must also not abuse his ability to stay awake for long; he must still set aside time for the brain to sink into sleep, because even the Buddha slept a few hours in the night.

There are Zen masters who fight sloth and torpor by stabbing an awl into their flesh. But there are also those who need only sleep a little to feel well and become alert again to continue sitting in meditation.

Whatever the case, according to the standard the Buddha laid down, a practitioner of meditative concentration must be able to abide in mindfulness to dispel the feeling of sleepiness. Then, when going to sleep, he again abides in mindfulness to coax sleep.

Many practitioners can abide in meditative concentration and sit through the whole night in this way. We must not force ourselves to imitate them, as it will damage the body. We must let mindfulness finish eliminating the hindrance of sloth and torpor, and then we will naturally be able to stay alert and awake for long.

Restlessness

Restlessness (trạo cử) is the state in which the body is not at peace, not motionless. The cause is that impulses in the brain constantly send signals down to the whole body and limbs, so that the body keeps moving faintly. That movement sometimes cannot be seen with the naked eye. From outside, everyone looking at us still thinks we are sitting motionless, but in fact we are still swaying very slightly.

When the hindrance of restlessness is eliminated and the impulses of the brain's nerves settle, suddenly we feel the whole body stiff and motionless, unable to move any more. This feeling always goes together with a very deep state of mindfulness, with a mind fairly pure and alert. We must absolutely not make the body motionless by tensing the whole body, because it will strain the nerves of the brain and turn into illness.

The feeling of having no body, of losing the body, still means the hindrance of restlessness has not been eliminated, because when restlessness is gone, the body again has a feeling of stiffness. Later, when entering the first jhana, the body begins to have a feeling of softness and looseness while still motionless.

Doubt

The original term is Nghi (doubt). As long as the hindrance of doubt has not been eliminated, the practitioner, however diligent, still has some perplexity: not knowing whether he is on the right road, whether practising like this has results, whether sitting in meditation like this is of any benefit. When he attains mindfulness with clear awareness and then goes on to eliminate the hindrance of doubt, at once that feeling of perplexity vanishes, and the practitioner has a powerful self-confidence about the Buddha's Dharma and about the whole path of practice up to now.

From confidence in himself, the practitioner at once has great faith in the Buddha, the Buddha's Right Dharma and the realised Saints of the Sangha.

If before that the ideal of enlightenment and liberation was not yet absolute, then after eliminating the hindrance of doubt, the practitioner will attain an ideal that is almost absolute.

In many sutras, the Buddha praised eliminating the Five Hindrances as like putting down a heavy load, like being freed of debt, like coming out of a wilderness, which is to say, making our soul very light and at ease.

After eliminating the Five Hindrances, the practitioner prepares to enter the first jhana. From this we know that the value of the four levels of meditation (the four jhanas) is very great. Many arguments have belittled the four levels of meditation because they do not understand the matter fully. Whoever belittles the four levels of meditation will suffer very heavy loss of merit.

However, we should not think that once we have eliminated the Five Hindrances we have entered the position of non-retrogression. We may still have wrong views not yet gone, and so may commit mistakes that cause loss of merit and lead to backsliding in this life or the next.

Question: Assess the Five Hindrances in yourself.