Bodhisattva ethical restraints: 6 causes of afflictions

• Auxiliary vows 24-26 are to eliminate obstacles to the far-reaching practice of meditative stabilization. Abandon:

• 25. Not abandoning the five obscurations which hinder meditative stabilization: excitement and regret, harmful thought, sleep and dullness, desire, and doubt.

• The six causes of afflictions in the mind

It’s quite rare to meet the Dharma. Not every being in every realm can encounter the Dharma because it’s just not there. Even within our human realm, the number of beings who have met the Dharma compared to those who have not is quite small. And within meeting the Dharma, to encounter the Mahayana and the bodhisattva path is particularly precious, to meet a path that teaches us about our buddha nature, the potential to become a fully enlightened being, and the potential to live a meaningful life that is beneficial for other living beings. Just encountering that kind of path is quite rare and precious and something that can have a very profound effect on our mind if we take the path to heart and train our minds in it. So, with the aspiration to fulfill the bodhisattva path and make our lives now and in the future highly meaningful for all sentient beings, let’s learn the bodhisattva trainings, the bodhisattva practices.

Review of the five hinderances

We finished talking about each of the five hindrances. Do you remember what they are? See if you can do them from the beginning: (1) sensual desire, (2) ill-will, (3) sloth and torpor or dullness and drowsiness, (4) restlessness and regret, and (5) doubt.

Try and notice those when they come in your mind. If you can’t notice them, you won’t be able to do anything about them and instead, they’ll just hijack your mind and take you all over samsara as they have been doing. It’s important to notice them. In your meditation you need to have mindfulness that puts your attention on whatever object you’re meditating on. And then, introspective awareness that surveys the situation from time to time to see if you’re still on the object. It’s going to be the introspective awareness that sounds the burglar alarm and says that one of the five hindrances is present stealing your virtue. If you don’t turn your burglar alarm on, what happens? The thieves just come in and have a jolly old party, and you come home and its shambles. That’s like a meditation session where at the end, the bell rings and you go, “Oh, gee! Where was I for that last hour and something?” because your burglar alarm of the introspective awareness wasn’t turned on. 

Sometimes the burglar alarm is turned on, but you say “I want to sleep some more,” or “Oh well, a thief is in the house, but I’m sort of enjoying it, it’s a good-looking thief, so maybe I should sit down and talk to him for a little while.” That’s like when you have the hindrance of sensual attachment coming in, and it’s like, “Oh, this feels nice: prince charming, lying on the beach, and my daydreams of everything I’m going to do in the future; it’s kind of nice.” And especially when you’re having a Dharma daydream, you can justify it a little bit more. Like one of your planning sessions: “I’m going to do this retreat, I’m going to study this, I’m going to go here, and I’m going to go there.” It sounds like, “Oh, well, this isn’t really a thief, this is Dharma.” You may notice that your mind is off the object, but you’re enjoying it. So, you still must catch it and say, “No, this isn’t going to work, I must do something about it.”

Or you start getting really angry, and introspective awareness notes, “Oh, anger is present,” and you say, “Shut up, I’m finally getting in touch with the anger. So be quiet! Finally, I’m in touch with my anger.” But I think we’ve been in touch with our anger before. Have you?

The seeds of afflictions

Now we’re moving into the next paragraph. He’s going to talk about what makes the afflictions arise. He says:

In general, there are a number of factors contributing to the appearance of the afflictions like attachment in our mind. The lamrim gives six causes that can be condensed into three.

But actually, the three he listed here are three of the six. I don’t quite understand how they are condensations, so I’m going to go through the six.

The first general condition is the presence in our mindstream of the seed of an affliction that we have yet to eradicate.

What this means is that sometimes the afflictions are manifest in our mind—we’re manifestly angry or we’re manifestly jealous or arrogant or attached or whatever. But sometimes the afflictions aren’t manifest. Like right now maybe there’s no great attachment in your mind or no great anger in your mind, so those afflictions aren’t manifest. Does that mean that those afflictions are totally non-existent? No. Because still within the mindstream there’s the seed, the potency, that can give rise to a future moment of anger, attachment, pride, or jealousy. That’s called the seed of the afflictions.

As long as we have the seeds of the afflictions in our mind, at one time or another we’re going to have manifest afflictions, unless you’re very, very high on the path. Otherwise, the seeds are going to produce manifest afflictions quite easily. Just having the seed on our mind is a cause of an affliction to arise. Just having the seeds of weeds in the dirt is a cause for the weeds to grow. We start eliminating the seeds of the afflictions on the path of meditation. On the path of seeing, we remove the acquired afflictions, especially the acquired grasping at true existence. But the innate and the seeds that belong to that are removed only on the path of meditation. So, you see, those seeds hang around for quite a while. 

Audience: Is each moment of anger when it becomes manifest a seed?

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): The seed is more what carries the energy of the last moment of anger. You have a series of moments of anger, and then when the anger stops it goes into the form of a seed, and that seed carries the potential for the anger to become manifest again.

When Thích Nhất Hạnh talks about how we water the seeds in our own mind and how we water the seeds in other peoples’ minds, that’s what he’s talking about. We may not have manifest love in our mind, but the seed of love is in our mind, the potency. If we’re kind to others, we can make the seeds of their love and compassion grow. If we practice the meditations on love and compassion, we can make those seeds grow in our own mind. On the other hand, the seeds of resentment and everything else are also in there, so depending on how we think we can make those seeds grow. And depending on how we act to other people, we can make the negative seeds grow in their mind, too. We’ll get into that when we talk about some of the other five factors; it talks about those ways in which we water our own seeds or other peoples’ seeds.

Proximity and afflictions

The second one he mentions here is:

The proximity of an object that tends to prompt the disturbing factor or affliction in us.

This is one of the ways in which a seed gets watered. We have the seed of attachment, then whatever it is you happen to be attached to, if you go and place yourself within the proximity of whatever that is, that’s going to water the seed of your attachment. That’s why I always say, if you weigh 300 pounds and you want to lose weight, don’t meet your friends in the ice cream parlor. Because the proximity of the object just makes the attachment arise. This is one of the purposes of taking precepts—we are making a determination to not have contact with certain objects because we know that our attachment or anger, whatever affliction it is, is just way too strong and will take over the show. 

We are avoiding the objects that set off our afflictions, but we’re doing it for a purpose. We’re doing it for the purpose of giving ourselves some mental space so that we can do the different meditations that will overcome those particular afflictions. People sometimes say, “Oh, you’re a monastic, you can’t handle your sexuality, you’re just escaping.” Wouldn’t that be so easy to escape all the problems that come from sex by just changing your clothes and shaving your head? But why are we not engaging in sexual relations? Because we see that it makes our attachment goes totally berserky. Then we have so many expectations of the other person, we spend so much time worrying about them, worrying about the relationship, analyzing the relationship, and then we have very little time left for Dharma practice. 

It’s not that relationships are bad or anything like that. It’s just that we’re choosing to go in a different direction in our life, and we don’t want to water the seeds of our attachment. Because we’ve had enough relationships to know what happens when that happens. In the meantime, it’s not like every time you look at somebody of the opposite sex, or if you’re gay, somebody of your own sex, it’s not like we have aversion to being around all those people. Sometimes you meet people who are like that—they’re so afraid of attachment that they go into aversion. No, but you keep a distance, and then you work with your own mind so that you can really understand how your attachment functions. By seeing the disadvantages of attachment and the way attachment misunderstands objects you wear down the power of the attachment so that when you contact the object the attachment doesn’t come so strong. Then eventually, as you further deepen your meditation, when you realize emptiness, you start eliminating the seeds of the attachment in your mind.

It’s like with anything—if something really sets you off big-time and you’re trying to develop your mental capacity to deal with the situation in a skillful way, until you’ve developed the antidotes very strongly in your own mind, it’s better to have some space from that object. The same goes with anger. If there’s a certain person who harmed you in the past, and when you see that person, your anger goes so crazy that you want to get physically violent with that person, then the best way because you’re so out of control is to stay away from them. And use the space that you have to meditate, and meditate on love, on fortitude, on patience, so that you can learn to calm your mind so that it doesn’t get so crazy when you’re around that person. It’s a way of taking a time-out to develop your skill. 

So, we stay away from the objects. But again, we do it without saying, “Oh, I’m so attracted to that person, they’re wrong, they’re evil, they’re disgusting, I can’t stand them.” The Buddha taught the meditation about looking at the insides of the body, and he did that because it’s a tool to help us overcome sexual attachment. But we shouldn’t take that to mean that whoever it is that we’re attracted to is bad, evil, and disgusting, as if our body were pure. That’s not the case at all.

Inappropriate or distorted attention

The third condition that makes our afflictions manifest, he says, is “incorrect attention.” It’s what I call “inappropriate attention” or “distorted attention.” This is looking at the object in the wrong way. It could be a distortion, such as seeing impermanent things as permanent and unchanging; seeing foul things as pure; seeing unsatisfactory things as blissful and desirable—and things that do not have a self, an essence, we look at as if they had some kind of inherent essence. So, it could be those kinds of inappropriate attentions. 

Then based on those, we have even more inappropriate attentions. For example, we exaggerate the good qualities of an object we get attached to, we exaggerate the bad qualities of an object that we get angry at, we exaggerate the importance of having other people’s approval, and we exaggerate how awful it is when they disapprove of us or criticize us. There’s so much exaggeration in our mind, or projections of qualities that aren’t there. 

The murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida is an excellent example of inappropriate attention. Zimmerman is driving down the street, he sees this kid, and then his mind starts making up all sorts of stories about the kid that have nothing to do with what’s going on. But he doesn’t realize it’s inappropriate attention. He believes the things that his mind is telling him, and as a result, even though the person on 911 said, “Don’t follow him,” he starts following him, and he gets into whatever it was that happened. It’s a very good example of total inappropriate attention, and how awful it is—look at the result. He saw threat and harm where there was absolutely no threat or harm. Treyvon was walking home from the grocery store. But Zimmerman saw potential harm to himself. 

We do this, too. Sometimes there are people who have no intention to harm us, but we go, “Oh, this person is going to damage me, and they’re going to ruin my reputation,” or “they’re going to do this,” or “they’re going to do that.” And our mind just spins out with all sorts of stories. That’s inappropriate attention. It’s something where we really must watch our mind very, very closely, because when the thoughts come, we are so habituated to believing them. That’s why I keep saying, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Because we think so many completely off-the-wall, nutty things, don’t we?

This is where introspective awareness is quite important. In NVC, when they say, “Just talk about the bare facts of the situation,” that cuts off a lot of the inappropriate attention. Inappropriate attention is all the emotional things and interpretations that we putting out there that don’t exist there.

Detrimental influences

The next factor that makes afflictions arise is called “detrimental influences.” That’s a polite way of saying “bad friends.” Of course, one detrimental influence is bad friends, but I’m certain that there are more. What do we mean by a bad friend? Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey used to say, “Oh, you think a bad friend has horns on his head, looking really ugly, and coming out to get you.” And he said, “No, that’s not a bad friend; a bad friend is somebody who wants you to be happy in the worldly way.” A bad friend is somebody who, when you go to work, says, “Why don’t you get a life? Why are you going to that meditation retreat? How stupid. You’re sitting there looking at your navel. Why are you doing that? It’s better we go on a vacation to the Bahamas or go mountain climbing or go out to the movie. Why are you going to the Dharma group again tonight? It’s the second time this month, it’s so awful. What good does it do? We should really go out. Let’s go to the bar and have some drinks with our friend.” 

This is what’s called a bad friend in the sense that they’re the ones who take us away from the Dharma, and they’re the ones who encourage our afflictions. For example, when we’re upset, let’s say somebody criticized us, we go talk to our friend and pour the whole story out to them. And our friend says, “You’re right at being angry at that person. You should go and tell the world what they’ve done and go and get them.” Why is that person called a bad friend? Because they’re encouraging our anger, they’re encouraging our spite and resentment. A good friend is going to use NVC and say, “Are you angry because you’re hurt? Are you angry because you need respect?” A good friend is somebody who will help us work out our anger instead of telling us we’re right and encouraging that affliction.

So, it’s quite helpful in your meditations to really spend some time and look at your friendships. What seeds in you do your friends water? How do your friends act? What qualities do they generate in you by how they talk, how they act, what they encourage you to do, what they say about your life? In the same way, look at the seeds that you water in other peoples’ minds. Because there are some people that we’ve known for so long that we encourage their anger or their attachment by what we say or what we do. 

Sometimes, we want people to get attached to us—the “love them and leave them” syndrome. “Come get attached to me, then I can reject you before you reject me.” And look at the seeds that we try and water in other peoples’ minds, the qualities that we bring out in them. Do we bring out their doubt by posing lots of ridiculous questions? Or do we bring out their resentment by talking about how poorly other people have treated them and how they should get even?

It’s really a subject for quite a bit of meditation, to see the seeds we water in others and to see what others water in us. Then from that, when we have a good handle on what is virtue and what is nonvirtue, ask, “What do I want to practice and what do I want to avoid?” When we have a good handle on that, then we can discriminate who is a good friend who encourages our virtue, and who is a bad friend who discourages it.  

It doesn’t mean that bad friends are bad or evil people. They could be very nice people on one level. But in terms of how we relate to them and our wish to not have our afflictions triggered, they’re bad friends. And it might do us well to not be so close to that kind of person. That doesn’t mean we get angry at them, and it doesn’t mean we get fed-up and say, “I’m done with you, you’re awful.” It just means maybe we don’t divulge as much, or we don’t go to them when we have a problem and need some encouragement or advice. Instead, we pick people who are wise people, who will help us when we have difficulty in our own mind or difficulty in our life. 

What seeds are we watering?

The next one is “verbal stimulus.” Verbal stimuli can also trigger afflictions. Conversations we have with people can trigger afflictions or can trigger virtue. Our relationship to the media is something to really look at, especially when you watch movies and the movies have the peak emotional things happening every three or four minutes to keep you mesmerized. What are they invoking in you? When you watch a movie with a lot of violence, what seeds are getting watered in your mind? Fear? Suspicion? Anger? Hostility? Partiality? Are those the seeds you want watered in your mind by this movie? When you watch a movie where there’s a lot of sex and attachment and people grabbing for possessions and competing for possessions, what seeds are getting watered in your mind? Is it ignorance, thinking, “I’m an individual I,” arrogance, a negative kind of competition, attachment, etc. Ask yourself, “Do I want to water these kinds of seeds in my mind?” 

We need to know something about what’s going on in the world, and if you read the news, for example, in the correct way, it can be a be a whole lamrim book about karma. That can be very helpful. An incredible lamrim book about karma, amazing. If you’re watchful, you can watch how the stories are written to elicit certain reactions in you, and monitor your reactions, like, “Okay, am I getting hooked into this story? Am I getting somehow drawn in so that my afflictions are arising? If so, what’s the antidote? How am I going to calm my mind down from this?”

I think it’s very important to look at our relationship to the media, especially if you’re in the habit of reading advertisements. It doesn’t matter whether you’re online and reading the ads, or whether you’re looking at a magazine, even a Dharma magazine. Sometimes the Dharma magazines, the advertisements are written to increase your lust and attachment, aren’t they? And to increase your clinging to material possessions or buddha-boy or something like that. So, we must be very, very careful. How do we relate to ads? And there’s advertising all around us. When you drive on the streets, do you have the tendency to read the advertisements? And how does reading those advertisements affect you? Chocolate Cake $0.99/pound—“I’m pulling over, let’s go get some.” [laughter]

Habitual reactions

The last of the six factors that increase our defilements is “habit.” And habit is a really big one, because we’re so much creatures of habit, so much creatures of habit. In fact, sometimes we’re just like push-button automatons, aren’t we? Somebody says, “Open the window.” We say, “No, close the window.” It doesn’t matter if it’s two degrees out, twenty degrees out, or a hundred degrees out, “Close the window.” Or it doesn’t matter if somebody says “hello” in a certain voice. You react as quickly as a snap of the fingers. “That tone of voice reminds me of the way somebody spoke to me when I was five years old.” So much habit. This is habit. It’s also inappropriate attention, isn’t it? So much habitual reaction to certain stimuli sets us off, and we aren’t even aware of it because of the inappropriate attention that’s just been existing that we’ve never questioned and never tried to counteract. 

Like sometimes we hear that somebody we don’t like or somebody who we’re competing with, we hear that they’re being criticized, and automatically inside us we have a feeling of, “Good!” Have you noticed that? Automatically. There isn’t one split second. It’s like, “Oh, that person got criticized! Good!” And then you stop, and you go, “Wait a minute, I’m trying to cultivate love and compassion. Why am I rejoicing that somebody else got criticized?” Or somebody else got hurt or got put down or lost or whatever it is.

It’s just that habit. I think sometimes in our dreams we can see our habitual reactions very clearly. Just habitual old ways we have. There’s something I see in myself, that sometimes I know I should be doing something and keeping on top of something, but I’m too lazy to do it. Then when it doesn’t get done and somebody calls me on it, I say, “Oh, but nobody reminded me.” But in the back of my mind, I know I should have been tracking it better. This is just the habit that I have.

How do I make up excuses so that people don’t think poorly of me? I say, “Oh, but nobody reminded me.” So, I absolve myself. This is a very stupid habit. We can look and notice these kinds of things. Or sometimes when somebody says to us, “Did you do this?” Our instant reaction is, “Ahhhh, they’re going to criticize me, they’re going to get me.” And we have absolutely no idea why they’re asking, but we’re sure that “did you do this?” means “you did something wrong.” Because I’m just so used to my parents saying, “Did you do this?” and it meant I did something wrong. Now when anyone says, “Did you do this?” I instantly say, “No, no, no,” and then they say, “Oh well, it was something I really liked, and wanted to thank the person who did it.” And then I’m going, “Oh, shucks!” [laughter]

Sometimes we have the habit to tell little white lies when we feel like something is happening. We’re afraid of getting blamed or afraid of somebody criticizing us, we’re afraid we’re going to look like a fool. We don’t really understand the situation very well, but already we want to cover our tush, so we tell a little white lie, and it’s just a habit. What’s amazing is sometimes you can tell when somebody is doing that. You know very clear and well that they’re not telling the truth, and you’re tempted to say something, but then that person will make up another excuse because they don’t have the ability in that moment to say yes or no, “I did this” or “I didn’t do that.” Sometimes we’re that person. We don’t answer questions straightforward because our habit is self-protection. “Let’s protect my ego under any even mild suspicion of threat,” and it creates so many problems. Sometimes we look so foolish, especially when somebody knows we’re making up an excuse. They may not say anything, but they can tell. So, it’s important to really watch our habits.

Also, when we want to relax, how do we relax? What are our habits for relaxing? And does what we do for relaxation really relax us, or does it stimulate afflictions? We should really check that out. “Oh, I’m relaxing in front of the TV watching the Red Sox. But the Red Sox are losing! Oh, dear, I’m so upset.” [laughter]

Any questions on this part so far?

Audience: I have a question about the one you were talking about, the presence of detrimental influences. You talked about us encouraging attachment in other people, and I was just curious about how that relates to our own afflictions.

VTC: What do you mean?

Audience: We were talking about watering our own afflictions…

VTC: What I’m talking about is how we encourage other people’s attachment—you’re asking how does that relate to our own afflictions? It could be that we’re attached to something, we want them to be attached to the same thing, so then we can go off and enjoy it together. Sometimes it’s that kind of thing. Or we’re angry and we want our friends to be angry and upset about the same thing. Is that what you meant?

Audience: Yes. Yes, so it’s like we need understanding.

VTC: Sometimes we don’t feel so secure with what we’re feeling, so the more people who think or feel like we do, the more we are convinced that what we’re thinking or feeling is good and correct. Of course, because a lot of people believe it, does that mean that it’s good? Does that mean that it’s correct? No. A lot of people believed in Nazi dogma, but does that mean it was good or correct? You see, when we don’t have the ability to trust ourselves and evaluate with clear wisdom what we’re thinking and feeling, we rely on other people to tell us who we are. This can be scary because we have no ability to evaluate our own attitudes and actions, and we completely depend on whether other people approve or disapprove.

Like if we’re attached to somebody, we try to get other people attached; if we’re attached to an idea, we get other people believing it; if we’re biased and prejudiced, and if other people are biased and prejudiced in the same way, then we feel more justified. If we’re angry at a certain person or political party or whatever, if other people feel that way, then we think, “Oh yes, my anger, my cause” or whatever it is, “is good.” 

What we want to do if we have that tendency is to ask people who are wise for their thoughts and advice. We usually ask the people who we know are going to agree with us, who are going to support our afflictions. But if we’re really smart, we would ask people who we know are wise. What do you think about this situation? Then get some tools to learn how to evaluate things ourselves. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: In school, you’re saying, teach kids how to think for themselves—which is happening less and less nowadays because kids are so busy wanting short answers to ridiculous questions. Donna is a teacher, and she says it’s so difficult to get the kids to really think about something in a serious way.

Audience: Also, there’s so much standardized testing, which is really challenging. Teachers have the burden to make kids do standardized testing, and that’s all they can teach.

VTC: Right, teachers must teach kids how to do well on the test instead of teaching them how to think. There’s a lot that’s very rich for meditation here, wouldn’t you say?

Audience: Just knowing what these are makes the introspective awareness smarter.

VTC: Yes, right. Just having these six in your mind makes your introspective awareness sharper and smarter so that you know what to look for and can catch things better. Yes.

About the media: I was thinking of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh. You listen to that talk radio, you hear it enough, and then you just start to believe it—“Well, everybody thinks that way.” So, we must be very, very careful about what we listen to quite often because we start thinking in that way, and it can be quite dangerous.

Antidotes to the hinderances

These are the major obstacles to the development of one-pointed concentration. We commit this secondary misdeed by not trying to discard them first by learning how they arise and what remedies them and then by applying their antidotes.

We transgress this precept because we don’t try and learn what the afflictions are, we don’t try and learn how they arise, and we don’t try and learn what their antidotes are. 

Each hindrance has its specific antidote.

These are things you should know off the top of your head, because if you can’t remember them, you won’t be able to apply them. 

The remedy to restlessness and regret is drawing the mind inwards by contemplating death and impermanence, and fixing our attention firmly on the object of concentration.

I would say, especially for restlessness, drawing the mind inward, trying to focus on the breath or whatever object you’re contemplating is very good. For regret, I think it can be very helpful if you’re regretting something that needs to be regretted, to do purification practice and then really let go of whatever that regret was. Learn from the situation. If you’re regretting something like, “Oh, the person at the bank gave me $200 dollars extra and I gave it back to them, I really shouldn’t have done that, I could have used the extra money,” if you’re regretting that kind of thing, you should really purify. If you’re regretting a virtuous action, you need enough wisdom to catch yourself and say, “That’s the wrong kind of regret.”

One antidote to lethargy and sleep [to dullness and drowsiness] is to visualize sunlight or moonlight. Another is to contemplate our great fortune in having an excellent human rebirth with all the favorable conditions for spiritual practice.

You contemplate something that is going to uplift your mind. If you’re not familiar with the precious human life meditation, it’s going to be hard for it to uplift your mind, and it might inspire doubt instead. But if you’re familiar with the meditation, it can be very good. In terms of what he said about visualizing sunlight and moonlight, it can be very helpful when you exhale to think that you’re exhaling all the drowsiness and dullness in the form of smoke or pollution that just evaporates; and when you inhale think that you’re inhaling light that fills your whole body and mind. Another method is if you’re visualizing the Buddha, make the object of meditation very bright, really brighten it and clarify it in your mind. Sometimes if I think “bright with sparkles,” I think of it sparkling, then it really helps.

A further method to shake us out of a state of lethargy is to reflect on the superior qualities of the Buddha and of enlightenment.

Again, it’s focusing on a topic that is inspiring that’s going to uplift our mind.

The antidote to ill-will is meditation on love [or patience, fortitude]. 

To counter attachment to sensory objects, we contemplate their disadvantages and their unappealing traits.

Contemplate the disadvantages of these objects, really looking at the things we’re attached to and asking ourselves if they’re really so appealing and if getting them is really going to make us happy. I do that sometimes when I get attached to something. In my meditation I think, “Okay, let’s live this out, this and this and this,” and I get the whole thing. Then I say, “Now am I forever happy?” And it’s like, “No. Okay, well then I don’t need to get attached to that, it’s just not going to cut it.” 

The antidote to doubt is to examine the manner in which our self exists. As a person, we do not exist inherently or independently. Nevertheless, at a relative level our self does exist but only in relation to other phenomena such as our body and our mind. By reflecting on our conventional mode of existence, instead of remaining vague, we gain insight and acquire convictions that enable us to overcome doubts about what exists and what does not.

I think it should say “ultimate mode of existence” there, too. So that instead of remaining vague, we gain insight. Included in this, I would say “meditate on impermanence, meditate on unsatisfactory conditions,” these kinds of things; it’s going to really help to clarify our doubts. 

Two virtuous mental factors, [integrity] and [consideration for others], serve as general antidotes to all five hindrances.

These two are important for all five.

The first, is a [sense of integrity].

He translates it as “shame,” but the word shame in English can have several different meanings, and it can sometimes be a heavy-duty word. So, I prefer to use self-respect, a sense of self-respect, or a sense of our own integrity.

It arises in relation to ourselves when we realize that we were under the influence of a hindrance. We feel self-conscious because we know that it is not right to surrender to the hindrances and furthermore, that by doing so we are producing negative karma.

The sense of our own integrity is like we care about our self. It’s like, “I know this isn’t proper, I know this isn’t a good thing to do. I have a sense of my own moral integrity, my own self-respect. And because I respect myself, I’m just not going to get involved with this. It might be tempting, there might be a lot of peer pressure, but I’m not going to feel good about myself if I get involved in this.” So, it’s using ourself or our Dharma practice as a reason to restrain from involvement with an affliction or a hindrance or something like that.

He translates the other general remedy as “embarrassment.” But it’s not really embarrassment. I think it’s more “consideration for others.”

In relation to others at the thought that the buddhas and bodhisattvas, our teachers and spiritual companions know or might learn that we are yielding to a hindrance in meditation.

This is more the idea that we care about what wise people think of us—not because we’re attached to our reputation, but because they’re wise people and we want to be worthy of wise persons’ appreciation or approval or whatever. It’s not attachment to reputation. It also includes knowing that our actions affect other people and that if we do something and other people find out about it, they could lose faith in the Dharma, they could lose faith in us, it could really harm their trust or destroy the relationship. So, because we care about other people we refrain from negative actions. Or in this case we refrain from the hindrances in our meditation.

Furthermore, there are certain behavioral remedies. In the case of dullness and drowsiness, we can get up and walk around or wash our face with cold water, for example.

If you’re meditating and your mind is just so dull, get up, wash, do prostrations, go somewhere cold, dismantle your empire—take off the blanket, your jacket, your hat. The cold will wake you up. Sit up straight, do prostrations so that your body is active. All these things kind of help. 

For the other hindrances the best is to compel ourselves to remain in the meditation posture and channel all our powers of memory and mindfulness into generating the object of observation in our mind and keeping it there.

With the other afflictions, you don’t go like, “My mind’s going crazy with attachment, my mind’s going crazy with doubt,” or “I’m so dissatisfied, I’m so restless,” and get up and leave. He’s saying no, that’s not the best way to handle it. Best is to stay and learn to work with your mind in one way or another. Develop some creative way of working with your mind. Sometimes if your mind is really crazy, open your eyes and look at the Buddha, just look at the Buddha. You see the Buddha’s expression; you see how he’s sitting, and then that speaks to you. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Sometimes you’ve done purification, and you really want to let something go, but your mind won’t let it go. First of all, purifying something once doesn’t mean that the karma has been purified. There are some actions that we need to really spend some time on. We might purify it; it doesn’t come up for a while, and then a year later it comes up again. So, we need to work on it at a deeper level this next time. Sometimes it takes time to purify things. 

There’s another kind of way in which we’re very clean clear that “I’m not going to do that again,” but it’s like our mind wants to taunt us. There’s a certain kind of thing of like, “Oh, you did this! How are you going to avoid doing that again?” Or “Aren’t you a terrible person?” There’s a certain kind of tone or flavor in the mind, and we can see that it’s basically an affliction that’s arising to taunt us and distract us from doing our meditation. That’s something different than real regret. It’s just our berserky mind sort of bugging itself. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You must look and say, “Okay, how sure am I that I won’t do that again?” You review your antidotes, you review your determination, and if you come to the same thing—“No, I’m really clear, I don’t want to engage in that again”—then that kind of taunting, jeering mind has no space. If you buy into it and say, “Oh, I don’t really know. Maybe I really want to do this,” then you’re off and running, aren’t you?