Day 2: Hindrances

Today is your first full day of meditation and it is what our teacher Bhante Vimalaramsi would call the first day blues, because you will probably be dealing with some challenges, and these challenges are essentially the mind experiencing one or more of the hindrances. These hindrances come from the Pali word nivarana. Nivarana means obstacle. It's something that obstructs your path in meditation. It creates a block or a stopping point from your attention being on your object.

There are five basic hindrances: craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt. So when we talk about the hindrances, they can come in different flavors. They can come in different variations. These are the five general ones, but there can be others that are related to these hindrances. Whatever the reason is for these hindrances to arise is not the point. What you have to see is how you deal with them in the present moment. The hindrances arise whenever the mind has lack of mindfulness. So what is mindfulness?

It's an interesting word, mindfulness, full of mind. What does it mean? It comes from the Pali word sati. Sati is related to the Sanskrit word smriti, which means memory. So what it's saying is to remember. Remember what? Remember to be present. So Bhante Vimalaramsi would say that this is basically remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to the other. That's it. So related to this sati is something called sampajanya. Sampajanya essentially means to comprehend, to understand, to know and understand whether the mind's attention is on the object or if the mind's attention is somewhere else. A hindrance is an object too, or a series of hindrances can be objects as well.

That's why we're saying mindfulness is remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one object to another. So it is the ability to be aware of your mind, or in other words, metacognition. Not cognition of metta in terms of loving kindness, metacognition in terms of being aware of how your mind works, the awareness of awareness. This is the first step towards letting go of the hindrances. In other words, it is the first R, to recognize. As soon as you recognize that the hindrance is present, that whole flow of that hindrance stops right there, because now you have regained your mindfulness. So let's delve a little deeper into the nature of these hindrances, the quality of these hindrances, how you can experience them, so you can understand what they feel like when they arise. Craving here is essentially sensual craving, but I would say it could be any kind of craving in the mind. So what is craving? Craving is the mindset that says, I like it and I want more of it. Maybe you might be meditating in the morning and you hear birds chirp in the trees.

Your attention is now on the birds, the sound of the chirping birds. And maybe you know what kind of bird is chirping. So your mind says, oh, that's so-and-so bird. What happens is your mind thinks back to a time when you saw this bird when you were walking in the park somewhere else, and then you think back about what you were doing in the park, who you were with in the park, and then you think about that person, and then you think about what that person said to you a couple of days ago or a week ago, and then you think about another incident that you had related to what they said a week ago. And you see what's going on here.

You have gone into what is known as mental proliferation. You've gone into these thought loops. Just one sound created all of these different kinds of thoughts in the form of mental proliferation. Now you might be there for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, just thinking about this or that. And that's okay. That's fine. You don't have to beat yourself up about that. But as soon as you recognize, oh, I'm no longer feeling loving kindness, I'm no longer having any loving kindness in my awareness, you've done the first step automatically. Now you just relax. Come back to the smile, re-smile, and return back to your object, whether it's loving kindness or whatever else it might be, sensual craving or craving in general.

Another form of craving can be that you try too hard. There are two particular reasons, or I should say there are two things that I found very common amongst meditators when they're starting off, even if they're advanced meditators, when they're starting off on retreat. There are two things. One is they try too hard. They make what is known as a Pali word, adhitthana, a resolution: I will sit for this long and I will sit with a clear mind and I will stay with my object of meditation. And they start, and then what happens? The mind starts to become foggy. It starts to have sloth and torpor. It starts to have restlessness. It goes through this and that.

Because of that hard determination, the mind has this resistance, or restlessness and resistance, that arises because it's pushing too much. Every time you push too much, you will notice a couple of things. One, that there is a band of tightness and tension around the head. And two, that there is a flurry of thoughts, a storming of thoughts in the mind, of this, that, or the other. If you notice this, then recognize that you are trying too hard. You need to lay off the gas pedal, right? Slow down a little bit. Keep things more spacious. So craving, trying for, longing for, wanting something, wanting a certain kind of state, right? with the feeling of loving kindness for the duration of the 30 minutes that I'm sitting.

That's a good goal to have. Commendable, absolutely. Practical? Probably not. But if you have that goal in mind and don't get obsessed by it, by pushing and trying too hard, and allow things to be as they are and relax into experience, you'll have a better time of it. Maybe out of those 30 minutes, 20 minutes all together you have been with your object in meditation. That's pretty good, right? I'm not saying successively, all together, in terms of one point of attention being there for 20 minutes. I'm just saying maybe it was two minutes, then it was three minutes, then it was a minute, then it was five minutes, whatever it is, but you're able to notice that your mind starts to become more and more attentive, starts to become more and more what's known as collected. So that's the first part, trying too hard, and the second part is not accepting yourself or the situation as it actually

is right. Oh, I'm not good enough, I don't deserve to have loving kindness, I don't [deserve] to be happy, and so on and so forth. If you notice that happening, then in tomorrow's interview we will discuss that and I will give you what is known as the forgiveness practice. Bhante has seen this, and I have seen this as well, when I give somebody the forgiveness practice and I say, okay, please do the forgiveness practice, and you see a forlorn expression on their face, as if they are being punished. As if I am saying to them, time out, go stand in the corner.

No. Please understand that the forgiveness practice in and of itself is a very powerful practice. Bhante Vimalaramsi himself had done two years of forgiveness practice. So the forgiveness practice goes very, very deep. It's mentioned in the suttas, not as forgiveness, but as letting go of resentment and letting go of self-hatred. This is, I think, an issue now all over the world, where people somehow cannot accept themselves as they are. There's too much resentment, too much baggage, too much guilt about something or the other. So the forgiveness practice helps to soften all of that. It helps you to gain wisdom about it and then ultimately to let it go. So if you feel like you need it, we will discuss it in our interview and I will tell you what it's all about.

But for now, please continue with whatever practice it is that you are doing right now. When you start off with the verbalizing, or when you start off with the gratitude practice or wholesome memory or wholesome images, you are essentially just bringing in the right causes and conditions for some form of happiness to arise. And that will be loving kindness, friendliness to yourself, that will be a wish for your own happiness, and then a wish for your friend. That doesn't mean that you have to keep staying on the intention all the time. When you start the car, right when you put the key into the ignition and you start the car, once the car has started you don't keep keying the ignition. So it will arise when it arises. Once it arises, then you let go of everything and just keep your attention open and relaxed right into the loving kindness. Imagine the loving kindness like a warm sun, and you are out on the beach just lying down and basking in that sun.

You don't have to generate it. You don't have to create it. You don't have to manufacture it. You just have to bring in these seeds. When a farmer tills the soil and he plants the seeds, he doesn't try to think, when are the seeds going to bear some kind of fruit? He can't force the seeds. He can't pull. If he does that, he's going to root out the plant. All he can do is provide the right causes and conditions. In the same way, the right causes and conditions here, the tilling of your mind, the field of your mind, is the intention through verbalizing, or through gratitude, or through wholesome images. The intensity level of the loving kindness might be a small little wisp of loving kindness, and that's okay. It doesn't need to be this glorified, you know, orgasmic experience. It's just a feeling of goodness, a feeling of gentle happiness, being uplifted, and just stress on that, stay with it. If you notice it fading away, let it fade away.

It's okay. But your attention to it will keep it going. Not your process of, I have to keep generating it, I have to keep creating it. So don't crave for the loving kindness. That's why I say, when you sit down, the first thing you do, after you sit up straight and close your eyes, is to do a body scan. First five or ten minutes, just do a body scan. Go through the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. Notice any tightness or tension anywhere: in your shoulders, in your neck, in your back, in your legs, in your calves, in your feet, wherever it is, in your arms, wherever it is. You notice the tightness and tension.

Soften it. Relax it. Just doing this itself starts to center the mind. Starts to bring composure to the mind. And then you can bring up the intention of loving kindness through verbalizing, through wholesome imagery, or through gratitude. warmth of loving kindness. When you feel good, then let go of that and stay with the feeling good. Don't try to control it. That's the main thing. The moment you try to control how it should be, now you are getting into identifying with the experience. Now you're getting into the realm of craving.

So just stay with it. See how it goes. Your mind starts to deviate from it and you notice that, bring it back softly, gently. The more relaxed, the more open, the more gentle you are with your attention, the deeper your meditation will flow. So that's craving. Then there is aversion. Aversion is the other side, the flip side of craving. Aversion can arise where you're sitting for meditation, and I don't think you might experience this here, but for example, when you go to a place like Dhammasukha in Missouri, people will meditate in the Dhamma Hall. And all of a sudden, the gardener will start his lawnmower and start cutting up the grass. And usually the first two days, people complain to me in the interview, and they say, I'm meditating really great, but then why do they have to start the lawnmower while we're meditating?

That's the whole point. How well can you remain okay with that? Equanimity towards that. So whatever sound comes up, whatever maybe a fly is crawling on your skin, maybe it's crawling around your ears and buzzing, maybe there's a mosquito, that's just a high-pitched sound, or somebody's opening the door, somebody's clearing their throat, somebody's coughing, all kinds of sounds come up. And if it disturbs you, then that might be an indicator of two things. One is, again, you're trying too hard, you're pushing, you're becoming too focused.

Meditation, believe it or not, is not about focus. It's about letting go and surrendering to the moment. In the morning, when you take refuges, what are you actually doing when you take the refuges? People new to this will say, oh, am I following a new religion? Am I praying to the Buddha? What am I doing when I say I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dhamma, in the Sangha? What you are saying is you understand that there was somebody named or called the Buddha who experienced for himself these states, and you're saying, I'm trusting the process that the Buddha has taught, and therefore I'm trusting the Dhamma which he has taught. And I'm trusting the Sangha of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis and lay practitioners who have some skill in this practice.

That's it. So in the same way, take refuge in the moment. Allow things to be as they are. The moment you try to grab onto it, the moment you try to become too concentrated and a sound arises and your mind goes to that sound, it creates this disturbance in the mind. You can even feel it going through your body, and your body squirms a little bit, and that means that you were too focused. By that distraction your mind became averse to it. So if your mind is open and staying with the awareness collected around the object, then whatever sound arises, no matter how aggravating and irritating it might be, will just pass right through you.

It will just be another experience. So just notice for yourself. The second thing about the aversion is that your mindset might have become coarse through the process of having a lot of aversion in your life. And that aversion can manifest in the form of a frustrating attitude, in the form of wanting more, trying as best as you can, doing things in a way that you have to accomplish, and so on. Again, there's a theme running here through these hindrances. This is why I am saying, and Bhante has always said, your teachers. They are shedding light on the psychology of your mind. They're shedding light on the different impressions that life has left in your mind.

And now you are here to understand, not to the extent of trying to analyze, not to the extent of trying to investigate and go down a rabbit hole, which can lead you to analysis paralysis, but rather to acknowledge, yes, this has happened, yes, this is how the mind has experienced things, yes, this is how I feel, but now I'm choosing to let go. So every moment is provided to you in a way where you can choose to identify with it. You can choose to say this is me, this is mine, this is myself, or you can choose to say I'm letting go, I'm relaxing and surrendering into the moment, I'm taking refuge in the moment. And when you do that, you might not notice it right away, but when you do that over a period of time, what you will notice is that the thinking aspect of your mind, that process that worries too much, that thinks about what if this happened, what if that happened, that goes into the past and thinks about all the things that had happened, all of that starts to silence.

And what is replaced by it is an intuitive understanding, intuition. So when you start to surrender or take refuge into the moment, then you get out of the way. And when you get out of the way, your mind is able to come up with the answers that are required for that moment. Because ultimately, you are your own teacher.

Your mind is its own teacher. There are those, like Venerable Basa and Christian, perhaps myself and others, who have walked the path, who have walked through the forest and seen what are the shortcuts, seen what might be the end goal, what is the end of the path. And such people can show you and guide you. If you walk down this road, this is where it will lead you. If you go down this way, I know a shortcut. If you do this, this will take you right here and you'll save time and so on. So we're here just to show you the map. But you have to walk it. You have to choose to walk it.

We'll give you all the tools you need. We'll give you all the information you'll need. But what's the use of it if you can't apply it? So the simplest tool is to take refuge with your presence of mind. Just to relax into whatever is going on. Fine, craving has arisen. Fine, it's thinking about this or that. No problem. I'm going to let it go and relax back into the present. And I'm going to allow the mind to bring up the object again as restlessness. So what is restlessness? Restlessness is either anxiety and worry about the future or remorse for the past. That's essentially what it is. So the mind, the way it's experienced practically speaking in the mind, is a kind of activity and buzzing in the mind.

One of the ways the Buddha has described restlessness is it's like wind-whipped water. You have a still lake and then the wind starts to create ripples in it. So the lake is still, but just on the surface there are these different activities that are going on. The same with the mind. It starts to go into a tangent, and it thinks about the future, thinks about, you know, what am I going to do off a retreat, or how am I going to experience this particular state of mind, or it thinks about, you know, what should I say in the interviews. I have to pay attention and make sure I know what to say at the interviews. Or it might think about things that you've done in the past and thinks about this or that, or whatever it might be.

And that restlessness is just another series of thoughts. That's it. The world that we live in is basically a world of concepts. We create the concepts, and then we abide by those concepts. So this reality that we experience is, in a sense, a consensus reality. Sure, we could say it's objective, but how do we actually know it's objective? We can only agree upon that these are the concepts that we have agreed to in this reality. And because of the way we've been brought up, perhaps, because of the way that we have experienced the world through our schooling, through our experience with friends while we've grown up, through our experience of exposure to media, all kinds of things.

It doesn't matter if it was 2,600 years ago, during the time of the Buddha, or it's now, or it's 5,000 years from now. The mind functions and works the same way. So that restlessness that arises is because of the concepts that the mind holds on to. And so the moment we start to hold on to a certain concept, we get worried about whether that concept will remain or not, or we get flustered by it, or we get remorse because of something that we did in the past. But these are all just the world of thoughts. That's it. You cannot give so much importance to your thoughts, whether they're wholesome, especially if they're unwholesome, or neutral. They're just thoughts. The thoughts have nothing to do with us. The thoughts are arising as a function of the mind. That is just what the mind does. It thinks, in the same way that the eyes see. The eyes have the ability to see certain colors, right? See certain kinds of shapes. And then your mind makes concepts around that.

You can't stop that. You can just close your eyes and that's it. But what about the inner eye in the mind? That continues for those who are more visually oriented. Likewise with any of the sense bases. When you're hearing something, you can cover your ears. When you're smelling something, sure, you can hold your nose. When you're tasting something, when you're feeling something, you can do all kinds of things to prevent that. But ultimately, it is just the nature of the sense bases to experience that. In the same way, the mind is just a sense base that is experiencing thoughts. That is its object. Sounds are the object of the ears. Odors and fragrances are the objects of the nose.

Flavors are the object of the tongue. Temperature and pressure are the object of the body, however it feels, external or internal. In the same way, our mind's nature is to think and to experience thoughts. The trouble is when that mind starts to say, these are my thoughts. When you eat some food, do you say, this is my food? This is my flavor? When you smell something, do you say, this is my smell? I caused the smell to happen? When you hear a sound, do you say, this sound arose because I wanted to? I wanted it to? Same with the thoughts. The thoughts just arose because the causes and conditions were ripe for them to arise. That's it. But the moment the mind starts to go into the la-la land of different kinds of thoughts, then it causes itself restlessness.

Now, another reason for restlessness is, again, trying too hard. When you push too much, when you create too strong of a determination, and you just keep pushing, you notice that tightness and tension, and you notice the activity, the energy in the thoughts. It becomes overwhelming. Then we have what's known as sloth and torpor. So sloth and torpor is just a bunch of words to mention, to call basically dullness of mind, sleepiness and dullness of mind. So usually the first couple of days of the retreat, because people have come from their busy lives, and come to sit. They've come to sit and relax and practice. And now it's just too relaxed. Everything is very relaxed. So the mind just starts to go into this process of being too relaxed.

And so that's where you need to work on the balance of your attention. And I'll go more into that in a little bit. Sloth and torpor is because maybe you have a different kind of sleep schedule and you're trying to adjust to the sleep schedule, getting up at a certain point and then going on about your day. But your body and your mind will adjust accordingly. Now, there are a few things you can do to deal with that sloth and torpor. The Buddha has said, if there is sloth and torpor, you can experience the inner light. This inner light is essentially your attention. where you put your attention, and how well you focus your attention.

I know I said meditation isn't about focus, but when I use the word focus here, I'm talking about in a certain kind of context. What I'm saying is, you think about your attention like the aperture of a camera. When the camera is too focused, it's not able to see everything, it's not able to capture everything, and that's not the way you want your mind to be. Open, so that even if a hindrance scraggles into the mind you can notice it and you can let it go right there and then. But if the mind is too loose, too relaxed, then there's not enough collectedness for it to stay with the object. So if the camera lens is too loose, what happens? Everything is out of focus. Things are blurry.

You can't see things fully. The same happens with sloth and torpor. There's not enough attention being given. You think that there is attention. Yes, I'm staying with the object of meditation. I'm here. And then before you know it, two minutes later, you're snoring. You're like this. And then you make the determination to say, okay, I'm going to get back up. And you become very stiff like that. And you meditate. Again, it goes back down like this. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you just keep doing this. You become a bobblehead. So it's about balancing the energy of your mind. And so the attention, the inner light. But there's also the external light.

If you can sit out in the sun, that's even better. Have some fresh air if the temperature permits, if the weather permits. Another thing you can do with sloth and torpor is to take a nap. Sometimes you need to take a nap. So the best time to take a nap is usually after lunch, but before 2 o'clock or maybe 2.30, let's say. And the reason is because what you do is you sleep for about 15 to 20 minutes and you get into what's known as NDSR, non-deep sleep rest, where the mind actually just goes into a certain state, one of the brainwave states. And then when you come out of it, you're fresh and you're alert.

But anything more than 20 minutes, you start to go into a deeper state. And that's when, when you come out of the nap, you feel groggy. So set your alarm for 15 to 20 minutes. You'll find that it refreshes you. Maybe you might need to take a couple of naps. That's fine. I remember that there was, at Dhammasukha, there was this one meditator. He came into the interview and he said, you know, I'm doing really well and my meditation is going great because, you know, the naps that you suggested really worked. And I said, oh, that's good. How long are you napping for? Oh, three, three and a half hours.

When are you meditating? So just, you know, 20 minutes at the most. Now, another thing you can do is walk backwards. When you're doing your walking meditation, if you walk backwards, this will help you to bring in more focus to your attention. Because when you walk backwards, you're really paying attention to make sure you don't trip. When you walk forwards, it's just almost unconscious.

But when you walk backwards, you're really paying attention. So it's starting to hone in. It's starting to sharpen your attention. You might do that for about 20 minutes. And you come back to your sit and sit and you'll notice that your attention is much brighter, much more radiant. And you're able to stay with the object without starting to go into that bobblehead movement.

So it's okay. If you feel sloth and torpor, just say, okay, this is just part of the practice. The more you accept things, the easier things become. And then, finally, we have what's known as doubt. So this doubt, when it is talked about as a hindrance, it's really talking about confusion, uncertainty. Am I in a wholesome state or am I feeling an unwholesome state? Do I have loving kindness? Did I remember correctly what was said in the Dharma talk? Do I have to do it this way or do I have to do it that way? Am I staying with my object? All of these thoughts that come up. The only thing you have to do there is you just have to let them go.

Don't try to investigate into them. Don't try to see if it's actually happening or not. We talked about doubt in the sense of doubt in oneself. Oh, I'm not good enough. I don't deserve loving kindness. I don't deserve to be happy. All of these things. So this is another kind of doubt. It's another form of doubt. And for that, maybe you'll need forgiveness. We'll see in our interviews. Hindrances might be, and whatever variations of those hindrances might be, the answer is always 6R or 4R, is always recognize, relax, smile, return. You will keep hearing that ad nauseam until it becomes burned into your mind, and you will keep doing that. Is not just for sitting practice or walking practice.

It is the practice to be lived out for the rest of your days because that is the Noble Eightfold Path. When you do right effort, you can apply it to whatever circumstance, to whatever situation. Because when you do that and you notice aversion arising and you're able to let go of that aversion, and replace it with something wholesome, then it translates into the meditation, where less and less aversion arises. When you notice that the mind is craving, becoming obsessed by something, wanting something, being obsessed by a goal, nothing wrong with having goals, absolutely okay, but becoming obsessed by it. Being obsessed by it will create inefficiency in your actions towards those goals. So when you notice that and when you let go of those obsessive thoughts, you're going to notice that there's less and less craving that arises in the meditation.

And the more you're able to recognize and release and let go and replace those hindrances in the meditation, life, you're able to catch them and let go of them. So this is a feedback loop system. The more you recognize them in meditation, the less they will arise in your daily living. The more you're able to recognize in your daily living, the less they will arise in your meditation. So the 6R's process is to be done anytime. It doesn't matter if you're sitting or you're walking. It can be done at any point in time. So, these are the hindrances to deal with, and these are some of the ways to deal with them. Now, for example, with restlessness, you just have to pull back a little.

If you notice there's restlessness in the mind, if you notice there's some kind of energy that's in the mind that's too much, then just pull back a little bit. That's it. What I mean by that, when I say pull back, it means just relax, just tranquilize, just soften things, and you start to notice that your thoughts start to slow down, things start to become a little bit more expansive in your awareness, and they start to just disappear. But the moment you see the restlessness and you try to do something with it, you do this, you do that, what are you doing? You're just adding fuel to the fire, you're just becoming more and more restless. Let go and relax into the moment, the restlessness starts to fade away, and you disconnect, disengage from those thoughts as being me, mine or myself.

This is how you teach yourself. Every time you apply right effort with regards to any of the distractions, you're teaching your mind how this process works. You're teaching the mind how it itself works. How it itself works, in the sense that you're able to notice, and we will talk about this later on in the retreat, you will start to notice the intricacies of the mind in relation to dependent origination. But it's just a process of doing it. That's it. And, most importantly, having fun with it, enjoying it, treating it like a... I'm not going to judge you in the interviews. I'm not going to be taking a notepad and scoring you on how your attention was.

No. You don't need to impress me. You don't have to do any of that. Just enjoy yourself. Have a good time. Now, speaking of interviews, so tomorrow they will start at 9 a.m. And I think they've all now signed up. Yeah, so when you have the entire sign-up sheet, then just send it to me. But once you have, yeah, whenever you sign up, that's fine. Once you sign up, then just stay through that time. Just make sure you come to the interviews. Try to be there, you know, 10 to 15 minutes before your interview time, because sometimes the interviews can go fast, because it's like, okay, this is great, you're doing well, now this is what you do. Any questions, please keep going. That's it. So it's all about just reporting in, telling me what's going on. And remember, I asked you three, I'll ask you three questions to start off, right? What is your object of meditation? What is your longest sitting, and did anything interesting happen? I might ask other questions, but these are the three questions.

So don't be in your meditation thinking about, okay, what do I tell Delson? What is my object of meditation? How long am I sitting? Anything interesting happening? No, no, no, no. Just enjoy the meditation, and after the sit, make notes. That's it. If you can, make notes, or just reflect back on what happened. That's it. If you forget something, you forget something. It's okay. The job is to understand through your report what is going on and then offering you suggestions of how to continue your progress. That's it. So in the morning sessions I will be accompanied by Venerable Obasa, and in the afternoon I'll be accompanied by Christian. They're not going to judge you either. I hope not. Yeah, no judgments. They might be taking notes, but they're not on what you're doing or anything.

They might be taking notes to better understand how to do the interviews. That's it. So please don't worry about that. Any questions? Yes. So, if the mind is really tight and the body is tight, how do you bring up joy? I mean, I can relax, try to relax. But how do you do that? So that's the key thing. You're trying to bring up joy. You don't try to bring it up. So tomorrow I'll be talking about the enlightenment factors. But just so you understand, there is this interconnectivity, interdependency between joy and tranquility. So when you have a tranquil mind, when you have a tranquil body, when the mind and body are relaxed, it is naturally uplifted.

If it's not, that means you haven't relaxed enough. And if you keep trying to relax, you're going to cause yourself more tension to keep relaxing that tension. It's like what Monte would say. You're using the 6R's like a stick. You're playing whack-a-mole with the hindrances. What do I release next? What do I release next? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? You know? The idea here is to just relax and just be. You know, there really is nothing to do. There really is nowhere to go. There's no one to be. You just allow things to be as they are. Joy, by the way, is overrated. Joy is absolutely boring.

Really. I'll tell you from experience. Because if you notice in this practice, joy might be the first few steps. But then the joy fades away. And something else replaces it, which is even deeper than that. And that's a feeling of equanimity and peace. And then that fades away. And there's something even deeper than that. And that's the experience of the ultimate letting go. Freedom of mind. So a happy mind, yes, maybe you don't experience joy now. But when you do experience it, it will lead to peace of mind. That peace of mind then leads to freedom of mind.

So how do you bring up that joy? You don't bring it up. It is dependent upon certain causes and conditions. Namely, just letting go. And in that moment, just tuning into the relief of letting go. The more you tune into the feeling of relief, that relief then brings up joy. Very tight, and it could be for a variety of different reasons, but we might explore that deeper in the interview, and I might give you other things like forgiveness, but we'll see if that is required. Any other questions?

Yeah, this is a good question because I have recommended to other people about this. You just allow the fog to clear. You might have to just go through it. You could try all kinds of things. You might go for a walk after lunch, and then maybe a brisk walk, and then come and sit and see how that feels, or you might splash some cold water on your face or whatever it is, and then sit. But sometimes you just have to allow it to be there and just not be affected by it, in the sense of react to it. I see you're here, and I'm going to let you go, and I'm going to keep going with my object as best as I can.

And eventually, yes, the fog does clear away. And you might have, out of that sit, maybe 30 minutes that are good, maybe 10 minutes that are good, maybe 5 minutes that are good. That's okay. But you are reconditioning your mind to say, okay, whatever the hindrance is, I will just sit with it. That gives a different connotation. That means I have to resolve myself to do something about it. I'm just saying sit with it. Allow it to be there and keep letting go. So sometimes you might have to do that. These days or these meditations I struggle with the body pain. But it always arises. I observed it 45 minutes after I start the meditation, and maybe it's because of this too much wanting, because on the one hand the meditation is very clear and very interesting new things happen, but then the body pain is so fulfilling and I cannot relax it.

Pain can be two kinds of pain. There can be an actual bodily pain, which means that even after you get up from the sit, the pain persists. Or there can be what's known as meditation pain, which is just arising as a mental experience being felt physically. And sometimes it's felt around here, it's felt on the shoulders, it's felt on the back, it's felt on the bottom. It can be felt anywhere.

And so it's not the pain that needs to be let go of, it's your relationship to it, because it's the same with pleasure, any kind of pleasant experience, or any kind of painful experience, or any kind of neutral experience. Okay, here is a pleasant feeling. It's wonderful, it's great, but am I attached to it? Do I want more of it? Or I'm just saying, okay, this is okay. This is nice. It's here. If you can have the same attitude towards pain: here is a painful feeling, and I'm going to allow it to be there. Because the more aversion you have to it, and so that's what I'm saying, you don't 6R the pain away. You can't 6R the pain away.

You 6R your aversion to the pain. And the more you soften your aversion, you will notice that the pain might dissipate, more collected around the object of meditation. And sometimes there can be pain, or tightness, or anything that is just a whirlpool or a knot of some kind of unresolved emotion. And if that's the case, you can try a little bit of forgiveness and see if that helps. And sometimes I will do that. I will recommend, and I'll say, pepper in some forgiveness. Maybe you're sitting for an hour and a half. Maybe you're sitting for two hours. And your meditation is going really deep, really great. You're going through these different states of mind.

But then you hit a wall. And it's like there's this pain, unbearable pain. And at that point, I might say, pepper in some forgiveness. And you might notice that that pain, wherever it is, it's collected there, because there is some kind of unresolved emotion that needs to be let go of. So that could be it too.

Yeah. You talked before about the focus of the camera, right? What if you experience like a pressure or not around the head, but still your body is totally relaxed, so you cannot relax even more? - Yeah, that's a good question. And that's actually a common occurrence with people. The reason that can happen is because the body is actually going through some kind of energetics.

So sometimes it can happen that you might feel some pressure in the head, or you might feel some kind of movement in the head, or you might feel some kind of movement around here or around here. And so in other systems, they would say that that could be a third eye, or that could be your crown chakra, or whatever it might be. But regardless of the terminology, regardless of what's going on, it's just something that is being released, and just allow it to be there. It's fine. You're relaxed. Everything is fine. Your mind is collected. It will go away, that's the nature of all experience, it just passes through. So if you notice, if you just do a little check and see: okay, am I trying too hard, or is my mind okay? Is there too much tightness and tension around the object? Where am I pushing? No, everything is fine, I'm very relaxed. Okay, it's just the body doing its thing, so I'm just allowing it to be there. I'm not going to have any aversion to it. I'm not going to pay attention to it.

I'm not going to put any identification to it. I'm just going to let it be there and continue with my meditation. And it will dissipate on its own. Any other questions? Okay, let's share some merit. May suffering ones be suffering free and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.