12 Meditative Hindrances

The 12 Meditative Hindrances

01: Physical Restlessness.

02: Mental Restlessness.

03: Sleepiness & Drifting.

04: Habitual Forgetting.

05: Habitual Control.

06: Mind Wandering.

07: Gross Dullness.

08: Subtle Dullness.

09: Subtle Wandering.

10: Subtle Distraction.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.

12: Fear of Letting Go.

The 12 Meditative Hindrances and 12 Meditation Markers.

 Each Hindrance hinders the development of its associated Meditation Marker. Creating the conditions for the Meditation Marker to develop will calm the hindrance that is aligned with it. 

Meditative Hindrances.                    Meditation Markers.

01: Physical Restlessness.      →    01: Body Relaxation.

02: Mental Restlessness.        →    02: Mind Relaxation.

03: Sleepiness & Drifting.        →    03: Mindful Presence.

04: Habitual Forgetting.           →    04: Joyful Presence.

05: Habitual Control.                →    05: Natural Breathing.

06: Mind Wandering.                →    06: Length of Each Breath.

07: Gross Dullness.                  →    07: Breath Sensations.

08: Subtle Dullness.                 →    08: One Point of Sensation.

09: Subtle Wandering.             →    09: Sustained Attention.

10: Subtle Distraction.             →   10: Whole-Body Breathing.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.  →   11: Sustained Awareness.

12: Fear of Letting Go.             →   12: Access Concentration.

 01) Physical Restlessness: Unable to experience physical comfort.

Physical Restlessness refers to when you feel unsettled in your body and need to move around and fidget to get comfortable during meditation. It occurs during meditation due to energy build-up from stress/aversion or overstimulation in our daily lives. Simplifying your life and relaxing with slow, softening breaths will lower your experience of stress and anxiety and weaken your desire to distract yourself with sensory stimulation.

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02) Mental Restlessness: Unable to experience mental comfort, leading to mind wandering. 

Mental Restlessness refers to when you feel mentally unsettled due to high energy levels from excess effort, stress/anxiety, or overstimulation. This may be felt during meditation as a sense of mental unease with scattered attention, tiredness, and constant mind wandering. Withdrawing energy from your mind by softening your mind engagement plus simplifying your life will lower your experience of stress and weaken your desire to distract yourself with sensory stimulation.

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03) Sleepiness & Drifting: Loss of clarity of body sensations & a sleepy, drifting feeling in mind.

Sleepiness & Drifting refers to becoming so relaxed during meditation that you feel sleepy and your mind drifts & floats around, causing you to lose clarity of the elemental qualities of your body as you sit in meditation. This happens because your skill in relaxing your body & mind is becoming really good; however, your skill in mindfully and clearly comprehending your present experience is still weak and needs to be increased to bring balance back to your mind.

04) Habitual Forgetting: You forget your meditation object and that you are meditating.

Habitual Forgetting refers to when your mindfulness grows weak, and your mind forgets your meditation object and even that you are meditating. This lapse into forgetting during meditation is a survival mechanism of your mind designed to save energy by following repeated patterns, like a screen saver on a computer. You may first notice that your mind has forgotten your meditation object after you realise that you have been off thinking or fantasising about something for some time. 

Sleepiness & Dullness, Habitual Forgetting and Mind Wandering are connected.

The process of the mind is this: Your mind becomes sleepy & dull > You habitually forget your meditation object > Your mind wanders and becomes lost within thoughts, fantasies, memories etc. for a while (like entering a daydream). The important part in working with this is to first remove Hindrance 03: Sleepiness & Dullness, then shorten the length of time you habitually forget your meditation object in Hindrance 04: Habitual Forgetting, then completely remove your mind's habit of forgetting to lower the stickiness of Hindrance 06: Mind Wandering. When Mind Wandering is weakened, it becomes background, random thoughts that no longer capture your attention.

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05) Habitual Control: Your mind habitually controlling your breathing.

Habitual Control refers to the experience of your mind interfering with and changing the natural flow of your breathing. Meditators usually experience this as a tight and uncomfortable feeling breath. This grasping of the mind to control the breath appears as tightness, tension and unease. As long as your mind has a habit of controlling your breath, your ability to develop deeper calm and tranquility will be hindered. It is important, therefore, to recognise this and follow the MIDL training of deconditioning habitual control. It is also important to observe that your mind will practice this desire to control things in daily life; your breathing reflects this. See this as an opportunity to learn to let go, and you are already halfway there.

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06) Mind Wandering: Your mind finds distraction more enjoyable than your meditation object.

Mind Wandering refers to your mind seeking something more entertaining than your meditation object. When this happens, your mind will shift a thought, memory, or fantasy to the foreground of your attention, and your meditation object, in this case, the breath, will be resting in the background, peripheral awareness. If you do not pick this up, your mind will eventually drop your meditation object from awareness altogether and slip back into Hindrance 04: Habitual Forgetting.

Sleepiness & Dullness, Habitual Forgetting and Mind Wandering are connected.

The process of the mind is this: Your mind becomes sleepy & dull > You habitually forget your meditation object > Your mind wanders and becomes lost within thoughts, fantasies, memories etc. for a while (like entering a daydream). The important part in working with this is to first remove Hindrance 03: Sleepiness & Dullness, then shorten the length of time you habitually forget your meditation object in Hindrance 04: Habitual Forgetting, then completely remove your mind's habit of forgetting to lower the stickiness of Hindrance 06: Mind Wandering. When Mind Wandering is weakened, it becomes background, random thoughts that no longer capture your attention.

In dealing with the wandering of your mind, sometimes you will find that your mind wanders to thoughts, memories, or fantasies that are very sticky in nature. This means that your mind has difficulty letting them go. These are opportunities for deeper insight. Sticky thoughts, memories and fantasises weaken by observing responses within your body, such as tensing or emotions, until you can experience the underlying pleasantness or unpleasantness. Applying the GOSS Formula by softening and relaxing the effort held within your mind and body towards these distractions while finding pleasure in letting them go re-grounds awareness within your body and rewards your mind for letting them go. 

07) Gross Dullness: Loss of clarity of in both your mind and meditation object.

Gross Dullness refers to the experience of an extreme lowering of your ability to be aware of any experience. This is experienced as a loss of clarity in both your mind and your meditation object. Gross Dullness is a sign of progress in meditation and reflects the deepening of a meditator's samadhi (unification). It occurs as the meditator develops physical and mental relaxation, and they inadvertently over-calm the ability for awareness to know an experience. Gross Dullness is a right-of-passage for the meditator. It refines the meditator's skill in relaxing while maintaining a clear comprehension of their present experience. As you learn to balance the effort, the Enlightenment Factor of Right Effort will mature, and you will no longer experience gross dullness.

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08) Subtle Dullness: Loss of clarity of sensations in your meditation object.

Subtle Dullness refers to the experience of the disappearance of your ability to perceive sensations within your breathing (or meditation object). While Gross Dullness is defined as dullness in both your meditation object and mind, Subtle Dullness is defined as dullness in your meditation object and clarity of your awareness. While experiencing subtle dullness, your mind will be clear, lucid, and tranquil. Because of this, it is easy to be deluded into thinking that you have entered an absorption state. If not addressed, this experience will repeat, and you will not reach more refined levels of samadhi.

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09) Subtle Wandering: Random, brief flickering of attention towards experiences. 

Subtle Wandering refers to the experience of little flickering movements of your attention away from your meditation object during meditation. Flickering of attention is observed at this stage because of deep relaxation and letting go of control. This is simply habitual scanning of your attention towards your six sense fields that occurs because you are no longer controlling your mind. When Subtle Wandering is present, you may have thoughts and other distractions arising in your background, peripheral awareness, but they do not draw the focus of your attention from your meditation object. As samadhi deepens, this flickering will naturally calm and come to an end for the period of the meditation by itself.

10) Subtle Distraction: Background distraction within peripheral awareness. 

Subtle Distraction refers to the experience of the subtle habitual grasping of the mind onto sensory experience within our background, peripheral awareness during meditation. This subtle habitual sensory grasping disturbs the unification of the mind because of the dispersal of mind energy and, therefore, hinders the development of upacara samadhi (access concentration).

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11) Anticipation of Pleasure: Desire for pleasurable states. 

Anticipation of Pleasure refers to the subtle excitement that arises within the mind as it starts to glimpse and 'look forward to' the possibility of blissful pleasure. Anticipation calms with repeated exposure to the pleasure that arises at access concentration until the mind is no longer excited by it. Anticipation is weakened by refining contentment in all aspects of your life and developing a heart connection (saddha) with the meditation path and practice.

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12) Fear of Letting Go: Fear of giving up all control.  

Fear of Letting Go refers to the deeply seated fear of giving up control to the momentum of letting go within your mind. Like a child on a slide, even though previously excited, once they gain momentum, fear arises within their mind, and they hang on. In the same way, the meditator's mind, feeling the uncontrollable nature of entering the flow state that is the doorway to jhana, tenses in fear and hangs onto the sensory world. Developing Saddha: Faith, confidence, and trust in the Buddha, your teacher, and your meditation community is the key to completely letting go. Reflecting: You are not the first. Others have walked this path before you.

“And how does a meditator dwell contemplating dhamma within dhammas in terms of the five hindrances?”

“When sensual desire (***) is present within them, the meditator knows: 'there is sensual desire present within me’. When there is no sensual desire present within them, the meditator knows: 'there is no sensual desire present within me’.”

“They also understand how the arising of un-arisen sensual desire comes to be, and how to abandon sensual desire once it has arisen, they also understand the conditions for the non-arising of sensual desire once it has been abandoned.”

(***aversion, dullness, restlessness, doubt). The Buddha MN10.

Treat each meditative hindrance that arises as an opportunity to develop insight by using this simple formula:

The formula for insight:

1. Learn to recognise each individual hindrance.
2. Understand the conditions it needs to arise.
3. Understand the conditions that cause it to cease.
4. Apply the conditions that cause the hindrance to cease.

Nothing personal here:

Hindrances are not personal; they are simply two things:

1. A sign of an imbalance in energy/effort.
2. A sign of an imbalance in the structure of your attention.

TIP: Clarify their anatta (not-self) nature by watching them come and go autonomously.

As an insight meditator, it is your path to understand and deconstruct the conditions for the arising of these hindrances. 

Hindrances are opportunities for freedom, not barriers.