Day 2: Hindrances Netherlands 2023

Is that everyone? Today we will talk about hindrances. Because usually on the first day of the retreat, the first full day, you will be met with a lot of hindrances. So the word hindrance or distraction comes from the Pali Nivarana. And this can mean a whole host of things, but essentially it's what creates an obstacle or creates a disturbance in your mind and prevents you from being collected, from your attention being collected and gathered around the object. There are five basic hindrances: sensual craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt. And we will explore each of these hindrances and how to deal with them in your practice. One of the things you should realize is that these hindrances don't just arise in your meditation, but they can also arise in your day-to-day living.

So how do you apply or how do you deal with them in daily living? The way you would in meditation practice, that is, using right effort. So the thing that you should understand is that when we talk about the four R's, recognize, relax, re-smile and return, they are to be applied as tools that you can use in everyday life, not just the meditation. And indeed, that is how you cultivate the Eightfold Path by cultivating right effort. When you recognize that you are with a factor that is of the wrong path, when you recognize that you might be dealing in unwholesome speech or wrong speech or wrong action, you can relax any tightness and tension around the intention, come back to a more wholesome object, and then from there you can act in a wholesome manner.

That is in alignment with the Eightfold Path, with the right factors of, for example, right speech, right action, and so on. So the more you're able to recognize these hindrances in your daily living, or let's say outside of your formal sitting practice, the easier your mind is able to find them, when they do arise or recognize them when they do arise. So this is essentially sharpening your mindfulness. In Majjhima Nikaya 43, which is the questions and answers between Sariputta and Mahakotita, Sariputta tells Mahakotita that the equipment of right collectedness is right effort and right mindfulness, which means you need these two in order for your mind to be collected.

So right effort is using the four R's. Right effort is essentially, as I mentioned before, preventing the arising of or further arising of unarisen, unwholesome states. That's the first right effort. The second right effort is to abandon already arisen unwholesome states of mind. The third right effort is to generate a wholesome state of mind. And the fourth right effort is to maintain that wholesome state of mind. So every time you use the right effort in this way, you are following the path. And that is how you deal with any of the hindrances that we are going to discuss now. Sensual craving. What does that mean? A practical example of this is you are meditating and perhaps you hear the beautiful song of a bird in the distance. Now your mind's attention has gone to the sound of the bird, and it's reflecting on the sound of the bird, and it's saying, oh, how beautiful is this, and it's thinking about last time you heard a song of a bird like this at another point in time.

And now you start to go into these thought loops and what's known as mental proliferation. Down the rabbit hole you go. And now you're no longer on your object of meditation. Your mindfulness has slipped. Your ability to be aware of where your mind's attention is has slipped. And it might go away for some time. It might go away for a minute, it might go away for minutes, it might go away for the entire practice. But as soon as you recognize that, oh, my mind has gone somewhere else, you stop any further reflection, any further distraction from arising. And then you notice, when you relax, that there's a spaciousness in your mind. You see, when we use the relax step of abandoning the unwholesome state of mind, in that moment, you are experiencing a mundane form of Nibbana.

In this case, when we talk about Nibbana, what is it? Nibbana can be super mundane, and it can be mundane in the sense that the super mundane Nibbana is the total alleviation of all kinds of suffering, the total cessation of all kinds of suffering, the complete and utter destruction of greed, hatred and delusion. But the moment you let go of an unwholesome state, the moment you abandon the unwholesome state of mind, in that moment your mind is free of any greed, hatred and delusion, and it's just for a moment, and in that moment there is a clarity of mind. There is a spaciousness in your awareness. It's like a clear, cloudless, beautiful blue sky. And with that mind, you then generate a wholesome state.

And that is done through the smile. So the smile is the anchor for your object of meditation. Whether that's loving kindness, whether that's compassion, whether that's joy, equanimity, whatever it might be. The smile uplifts the mind. The smile sharpens the mindfulness. And then with that mindset, you collect your attention around the object. So sensual craving is anything that causes you distraction through one of the physical sense bases.

So that could be at any point in time. That could be during the meditation. That could be during the walking meditation. That could be during eating. That could be during anything. Your mind pays more attention to the sensual pleasure or the sensory activity that's going on. And now there's a slip in your attention, with the feeling of loving kindness. How does the sensual craving or sensory craving arise? It arises due to repeated intentions rooted in sensual craving. So when you take the precepts in the morning, for example, you take eight precepts now, but when you get off a retreat, I hope you will continue to take the five precepts.

And one of the five precepts is the abstaining from sexual and sensual misconduct. So, sensual misconduct means in the pursuit of a sensual pleasure, in the pursuit of obtaining a sensual pleasure, you break other precepts. You have misconduct there. Which means your mind becomes obsessed by that sensual pleasure. And every time you act on that intention, you're reconditioning the mind to be activated towards that sensual pleasure, or towards sensual craving in general. So this process of right effort that we have introduced to you is essentially a process of reconditioning habituated reactions towards sensual activity, for example. And by letting go in that moment, you give your mind a space. That space is important. It's the difference between reacting and responding.

Reacting means you immediately grasp at something. You immediately identify with something. You immediately take something personally. But responding is you're waiting to see what is going on. Responding means you're using your intuition. So you're giving a space for your mind to collect itself before making any kind of reactive choice which leads to further suffering, to then see for itself with wisdom that this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself, and therefore you drop it, you let it go. And then in that space where there's intuition, you act from that. You act from wisdom, you act from loving kindness, you act from compassion, whatever makes sense to do. So this is how you let go of the hindrances: continual right effort until they no longer arise again.

Now, what is another antidote for sensual pleasure? Sensual pleasure in itself means that it is pleasurable, right? It's pleasant. The mind likes it. The mind gravitates towards it because it is pleasing to one or more of the sense bases, and experience with direct knowledge that there is a pleasure greater than sensual pleasure, then the craving for sensual pleasure starts to diminish. And that happens over time. And what are we talking about here? We're talking about an otherworldly kind of pleasure in the form of jhanas. When you're able to collect your mind around an object of meditation, loving kindness, your mind starts to become more and more composed, more and more balanced. And because it starts to become free of any kind of hindrance, it feels a sense of relief.

From that relief, there is a joy that arises, which is tied to the first jhana. And that joy doesn't have to be so overwhelming, something that is so overwhelming that it becomes excitable to the mind. That's not the point. The point is, the more you realize, the more the mind realizes that there is a pleasure independent of the sense basis, then it becomes less and less enchanted by those sensual pleasures. But the key is practice. Consistent practice, effort.

Now, sensual craving can also arise, or I should say it can arise whenever the mind becomes loose in its awareness. Any kind of hindrance, I should say, can arise when the awareness or the attention becomes loose, so that means there's not enough taking of an interest in your object of meditation. Now, I'm not talking about intensifying the feeling of loving kindness or trying to intensify the spaciousness that happens when you radiate in the six directions. All I'm saying is that there should be more awareness, more attention being given to the feeling. And as that happens, the mind becomes more and more collected around it, more and more naturally interested in the object, more and more naturally interested in the feeling of loving kindness.

It becomes enjoyable, in other words. And when it becomes more and more enjoyable, even if something that was pleasing to you before, experiment for yourself and see. Without meditation, without making the mind collected, when you indulge in sensual pleasures, how does your mind feel? What is the quality of your mind after that? And notice what happens when you experience a meditative awareness, like being in jhana, like being suffused with loving kindness. And notice how the sensual pleasures have a different quality to them. They're not as pleasant as they were before. They're not as interesting as they were before. And this is for a couple of reasons. One is because your mindfulness has become sharpened through the practice, and your attention becomes collected through the practice.

in different directions. And then we have aversion. So, this is ill will or different subsets of ill will. Aversion can mean irritation, frustration, anger, resentment, anything related to those. Basically, the mindset that says, I don't like it. He wants to push things away. And the understanding here is, again, this aversion arises or continues to arise because the mind has been conditioned in that way with the intentions towards aversion, or intentions that are chained in aversion. What is the first precept? Abstaining from killing or harming living beings. So there's an intention there whenever you want to harm someone, whether it's with your words, whether it's with your thoughts, or whether it's with your actions. And there's an intention to harm.

And this cultivates and strengthens the hindrance of ill-will or aversion. So every time you notice in your daily life where you're dealt with an unpleasant experience, maybe a person who seems to be unpleasant towards you, maybe situations that you don't want yourself to be caught up in because they're unpleasant, or maybe because you have some kind of resentment.

If you have any of these things coming up, if the mind indulges in acting a certain way, creating a sense of false relief that if I just pushed this person away, if I just escaped the situation, if I just avoid the circumstances, you feel some kind of relief in that. And so when you do, your mind says, okay, this is the way to deal with unpleasant situations. But if you use right effort to notice in your daily life that here is an unpleasant situation, here is an unpleasant interaction, here is an unpleasant person who's attacking me with their words, whatever it might be, here I am in a state of conflict with someone, arguing about something, if I continue to do that, then I will continue to strengthen the habitual reactions in the future. My mind will almost automatically incline to certain kinds of reactions towards those unpleasant situations in which I feel a sense of relief. But in reality, if you can let go and feel relief right there and then, not having to push things away, not having to act out of aversion.

And there is a relief as the foundational mindset, where the mind is open and spacious and aware and remains unaffected by that unpleasant situation. Then from there you act. So instead of reacting, you respond with wisdom. Maybe with compassion, because you recognize that this person is suffering and that they are being unwholesome or being argumentative or whatever it is, because they're suffering in their own way. And then when you keep doing this, your mind starts to become reconditioned. It starts to let go of the usual pathways that lead it to further suffering by acting in a certain way. And it starts to incline towards choices that are wholesome, that lead to the cessation of suffering.

So in terms of aversion, the cultivation of loving kindness in itself is an antidote towards any kind of ill will. The Buddha has said, even if you have a speck of ill will still left, that means you haven't perfected loving kindness. So keep cultivating loving kindness until not even a seedling of ill will is present in your mind. Until then, you just keep working towards cultivating more and more loving kindness towards yourself, towards your friend, towards other beings around you. And then we have what's known as restlessness. So restlessness is mental agitation. Restlessness can come in the form of anxiety, in the form of being worried about something, or thinking about the past. So really this is restlessness and remorse.

Worry and remorse. Worry about what's going to happen in the future and remorse for things that have happened in the past. So in terms of what has happened in the past, there's nothing you can do about it, right? There's nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about changing your past. However, you can reframe the way you see the past. And this is closely related to resentment as a form of aversion. Why I say that is because the antidote for that can be forgiveness practice. So if you notice in your mind that it is difficult for you to cultivate loving kindness, it is difficult for you to feel the loving kindness, or that you feel like you don't deserve loving kindness, or you feel like you don't deserve to be happy, then most probably you would need the forgiveness practice.

So tomorrow when we have the interviews, we will see what's going on in your mind, how the practice is going. And if you need forgiveness, fine, I will suggest forgiveness to you. And forgiveness is a very powerful practice. Oftentimes, I will see when Bhante Vimalaramsi used to suggest or recommend forgiveness practice, people would have this forlorn look on their face as if they're being punished. But forgiveness in itself is a wonderful practice. It's so powerful that it melts away all of the resentment, or at least melts away any of the residue from that resentment. And it lets go of any kind of residue from feeling guilt and remorse. So forgiveness can be quite powerful.

What about in the future? When you think about this or that in the future, when you have worried thoughts, when you have anxious thoughts, how do you deal with those? The best way to deal with that is through tranquility. And tranquility here means to relax, to abandon and to slow things down, one thing at a time. You notice a flurry of thoughts, a flurry of mental activity, and you start to get down into that stream, and you get carried away by that river of thoughts. But if you catch yourself being carried away, if you catch yourself being worried, and you let go, and you relax, and you do things one at a time. Now, I'm not only talking about the meditation.

Even in daily life, when you're met up and caught up by all kinds of anxious thoughts. Pause. Relax. Take things slowly. Bring that presence of mind. Bring in that sati, that mindfulness, and sampajanya, understanding what is going on in the mind in relation to whatever is happening. So if you're walking, pay more attention to walking. If you're eating, pay more attention to eating. This starts to slow things down. And this might seem contradictory to what I might have said earlier about if you are eating and you're cultivating loving kindness, where is your attention? Well, your attention is definitely on the loving kindness. But if you have anxious thoughts and you have panicky thoughts and a flurry of thoughts, and you try to come back to the feeling of loving kindness, doesn't work because your mind keeps gravitating in that direction, then create a space, slow things down, and come back to the present moment.

And one of the quickest ways to come back to the present moment is to understand what is going on in relation to whatever it is that you are doing. If that helps by focusing or staying aware of meditating, then good. If that's too abstract for you, too subtle for you, then be more aware of what you're doing in terms of the physical activity. As you start to do that, things in your mind start to slow down. But tranquility and equanimity. So what is equanimity? Equanimity is being able to see things as they actually are without getting affected one way or the other.

What does that mean? Okay, you are aware here is a restless mindset. If you remain stable, where your mind says, okay, here is a restless mindset, I'm not gonna get caught up in it, I'm just seeing it as it actually is. Another way of looking at equanimity is, if it's a pleasurable experience, your mind doesn't get caught up in the pleasurable experience either. If it's an unpleasant experience, your mind doesn't get caught up in that. It's just seeing pleasant experiences going on. Okay. There's a certain distance that you bring to that. An unpleasant experience is going on. Okay. You create a space. So why does restlessness arise? How does restlessness arise? take things that are not given.

And that doesn't mean just physical things. The restlessness arises because you might be looking for attention. You might be craving attention. You might be craving whatever it might be. Maybe you are stealing time from others. You're stealing the spotlight from others. So it's not just taking what is not given physically, also in terms of other things or more abstract things. So if you notice your mindset craving for the attention of a certain person or craving validation from people or things like that, and you start to act from that, what does that do? It creates agitation in the mind. It creates restlessness. So yes, in the first aspect of that precept of abstaining from taking what is not given, that is essentially physical possessions.

But eventually you start to notice, am I craving validation here? Am I craving for attention here? Am I stealing the spotlight from someone? Am I trying to bring attention to myself when the attention should be given to someone else in a meeting or whatever it might be? Time and efforts, and if you do that, if you notice that you let go and you relax, right? You recognize and you relax, you let go of the feeling for wanting validation or for attention or whatever it is, and come back to that equanimous state, come back to that more relaxed state. And then from there you can act. From there you can intend. So the theme for daily life is that you come from a space which is free of any kind of craving, free of any kind of distraction.

Come from a space where the mind isn't grasping at anything. That's the whole purpose of this practice: can you act with wisdom and intuition, and act with compassion when it's needed? Yeah, it's great to cultivate loving kindness all you can while you're sitting and meditating and doing the walking practice. But as soon as somebody shouts at you, what do you do? Do you shout back at them? Do you become defensive? Or do you realize, oh, this person needs loving kindness, this person needs compassion? What's the point of doing the practice if you can't actually apply it in daily life? The more you're able to apply it in daily life, the easier the practice becomes.

The easier the practice becomes, the deeper you go. The deeper you go, the easier it becomes for daily life for you to automatically bring up compassion, automatically bring up loving kindness, automatically bring up equanimity, or whatever is required for the situation. Restlessness is equanimity, presence of mind, and tranquility. And then we have what's known as sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor can arise for different kinds of reasons. Maybe you are not getting enough sleep. If you notice this, then please try to get as much sleep as you can. Bhante Vimalaramsi would talk about his past experiences in Burma, for example, where he would be meditating for long hours of the day. And he would go to his preceptor and tell him about his practice.

And the preceptor would say, okay, sit longer. And then he would say, but I have to sleep. And then the preceptor would say, sleep for shorter periods of time: hours of sleep to four hours of sleep to three hours of sleep. And it was having quite a terrible effect on his practice. So it's very important for you to have sufficient amount of sleep. If you have to take naps throughout the day, please do that. It could be somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes. This is known as NSDR. Or I should say, what is it? Non-deep sleep rest, NSDR. And so this allows the mind to be sharpened, to be a little bit more awakened, a little bit more attentive, a little bit more aware.

I had one person I remember in one of the retreats I did in Missouri. When I encourage people to take naps, he basically came into the interview and he said, you know, I'm doing really well. I'm able to meditate. And I said, oh, that's great. What's going on? He said, well, the sloth and torpor is gone, but I'm not able to meditate for longer periods of time. And I said, why? Because I've been taking three-hour naps.

So don't do that. Yeah. Try to, unless you need it, unless you have to catch up on your sleep, completely fine. But don't make that a habit. Now, the other thing is, what can happen is, when you're trying to go to sleep, notice I said trying to go to sleep, because what can happen is, you've been in a meditative state of mind, and now your mind is very active, very alert, very aware, and as you're trying to go to sleep, it's difficult for you to fall asleep. It's difficult for you to actually wind things down. So there, it's important to do something else. Go for a walk. Maybe write in your journal or read a meditation book, read the Majjhima Nikaya or whatever it is.

Just do something that takes you away from that so your mind starts to feel sleepy. You want to have good, deep sleep. You need to be able to have a mind or a body that is tired naturally. It's okay to be tired. But it's okay to be tired in the nighttime rather than being tired in the daytime, which has an effect on your meditation. So sleep is an important component. The second thing is when you have sloth and torpor, another reason is because there's not enough interest being given to the meditation. I would use the camera lens, the aperture of the camera, as an example. If it's not focused enough, what happens? The image is too loose.

It's blurry. But if it's too focused, it can be very one-pointed and you only see a little part of the picture. When it's not focused enough, that's where you have sloth and torpor. Things are too blurry. There's a gap in your attention, in your stream of attention. You're meditating, you think your mind is staying with the feeling of loving kindness, and then before you know it you become a bobblehead, go like this, you know, the whole time. And that's because there's actually not enough energy, not enough attention being given to the object. One of the ways to strengthen this attention is to walk backwards. So when you do your walking practice, if you walk backwards, what happens?

Everyone can easily walk forward, right? Without even having to think about it. But as soon as you walk backwards, what happens? Your awareness, your attention becomes sharper. You're paying more attention to make sure you don't fall. So you do this for about 15, maybe 20 minutes. You walk backwards. You come back to the sit and notice how your attention is. Sometimes you just have to go through the sloth and torpor, which means, fine, just accept that there is sloth and torpor in your mind. Don't fight it, don't resist it, don't do anything with it. Sometimes the best way to go past it is through it, right? The fog will clear away. The fog of sloth and torpor will clear away eventually.

But you need to have the patience to be able to just go through it, if that is required, if nothing else works. And then finally, we have what is known as doubt. So when we talk about doubt, it can mean multiple things. Doubt is talking about a lack of clarity of what is wholesome and unwholesome. Or more generally, a lack of understanding of what mind states are present. So not knowing where your object is or where your attention is in relation to the object.

Not realizing that you became distracted. Getting caught up into things. This is one way. This is known as confusion, which is, in this case, with regards to the suttas and the practice, is synonymous with doubt. But then there are other kinds of doubt, and that doubt can arise whenever you break the fourth precept of abstaining from using false speech. Because there, when you use false speech, there is an intention to deceive. And as you start to deceive more and more people, you yourself become doubtful of other people's intentions. And you also become doubtful of your own abilities and capacities. So this kind of doubt can manifest in, am I doing the practice right? Am I actually feeling loving kindness?

Am I fooling myself into feeling loving kindness? Am I doing the four R's correctly? Am I with my mindfulness? So all of these are also part of that confusion or doubt. How do you let go of that doubt? How do you let go of that confusion about what is present and what is not present? All it requires is your ability to observe what's going on and then be able to know, okay, I'm no longer on my object. That is enough for you to know. You don't need to go beyond that and try to analyze how did this come about, why did this come about, what is the nature of this hindrance, and so on and so forth.

As long as you're aware, okay, mind is distracted. To that extent, it is useful. That knowledge is useful. Okay, mind is distracted. Relax, re-smile, and you come back to your object. But what about doubt in yourself? What about doubt in your abilities, doubt in your capacities? That might require some forgiveness practice. Maybe you feel like you're not good enough. Remember I told you the two things that are commonly seen amongst practitioners is one, they try way too hard. They push themselves. That can cause tightness and tension in your head. And you might even feel it physically, where you feel like a crown or ring of tightness around the head. Or you might see that there's too much activity in the mind.

This is because there's too much focus. The aperture of the camera has become too focused and you're not able to see the full picture. And now your mind has become too active, too restless. Or what can happen is that the mind doubts itself. That's the second part. The mind says, maybe I'm not feeling the loving kindness. What was it that he said that day about this? Or am I doing this right? Am I doing this correctly? All you have to do there is recognize these kinds of thoughts and let them go and then come back to the meditation object. That's all you have to do. But if you find yourself getting caught up to that point where you have a lack of self-confidence because of something related to guilt or shame or whatever, then that means that you will probably need, again, forgiveness practice.

So these are the five hindrances that we've talked about. Sensual craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt. In general, the understanding is to use the four R's, which is to use right effort. If the hindrances are too deeply rooted that they manifest in certain ways, you use the antidotes. For example, the antidote for sensual craving is jhana, being more collected in your mind and having more interest in the otherworldly object of the mind, which is to say loving kindness, which is to say compassion, which is to say the feeling of happiness and joy that arises once you cultivate the first and second jhana, and so on and so forth. And then the antidote for aversion is loving kindness.

Cultivate more and more loving kindness. If it's resentment, cultivate forgiveness for yourself and for others. The antidote for restlessness is tranquility and having more presence of mind, taking things one thing at a time, slowing things down. The antidote for sloth and torpor is to bring in a little bit more energy, a little bit more interest, a little bit more awareness and attention to your object of meditation. That also means to cultivate the attention by doing things like walking backwards. And then finally, when we talk about doubt, just having that mindfulness, just having that ability to slow things down and observe what is going on. Just checking in with yourself. Not all the time. You don't have to keep checking in with yourself.

If you're staying with your object of meditation, and your mind is collected, then there's nothing for you to do. If you notice your mind has these thoughts, am I collected? Am I distracted? All of these things. First and foremost, treat those thoughts as distractions. Recognize them, relax them, come back, and then continue with the meditation. That in itself will clear away any of that doubt.

And finally, as we said, with self-doubt, you need radical amounts of loving kindness towards yourself. And you might even need some forgiveness practice. But I just want to summarize this and conclude by saying that it is always important to apply this process in daily life. That's the whole point. It's nice. It's all well and good if you can practice for long periods of time and be in loving kindness and enjoy the joys of being in the first and second jhana or experiencing these otherworldly states of mind and things like that. But what's the point when you come out of it and you're still a jerk? What's the point of it if you still get affected by difficult situations?

What's the point of it if you're not able to maintain your mindfulness and your attention on things and have a level of tranquility and equanimity? Not letting things bother you. So when you are in this retreat, this is a time for you to reflect on where is your mind at all times. Right? Is my mind cultivating loving kindness? Am I smiling enough? That used to be one of the questions for retreat interviews. How often are you smiling? I noticed today at the dining hall when we were having lunch, nobody was smiling. Why? What happened? Was the food that bad?

So please, remember to smile. Have fun. Remember to enjoy yourselves. You don't have to be so serious about things. The less serious you are about this, the easier it is for your mind to just sink deeper. Because the more you become serious, the more you try and push, the more you're going to be met with resistance. But if you just sink into it and relax and have fun with it, treat it like a game. Every meditation that you're going to sit into is like a game. Let's see what happens. Have that kind of attitude and allow the mind to just relax into things. Any questions? Can you clarify the difference between wisdom and intuition? When you comment on them, I get confused.

So wisdom is, in the context of the Dhamma, a special kind of wisdom. The understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Wisdom is cultivated when you completely understand what suffering is, when you've completely abandoned all kinds of craving and conditions for that suffering, when you've completely experienced and fully realized the total cessation of suffering, and you have perfected the cultivation of the Eightfold Path. That is true wisdom. You start to notice that this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself. You start to notice that all experience that is happening and arising has nothing to do with a controller that is quote-unquote you. It's just arising due to a series of causes and conditions.

Intuition is the application of that wisdom, and that can happen spontaneously. The first place of intuition is when the mind is free of any kind of craving. In essence, the mind is absolutely crystal clear and quiet. And so there is no thinking involved. There is no process of trying to figure things out. When your mind is so still and something comes up like a eureka moment, that's your intuition speaking to you. So, let's say you're met with a series of choices, or you're having a block in the meditation, and you ask your mind, what is the cause for this block, and how do I let it go? How do I deal with it? And you ask the mind that question, and you let it go, and you go on about your day.

You don't try to figure it out for yourself. You let it go, and you go about your day. And then all of a sudden, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. Oh, this is the block. It might not be the answer you're looking for, but it will be the right answer. Could you elaborate on the role of fearful states of mind and how it relates to the five agencies? So this is a little bit tricky, because some people say that the fear state is happening because of aversion, or it's happening because of restlessness. Regardless of what it is, fear can arise due to the mind taking something personally, identifying with something and being afraid of losing it, afraid of something going wrong, right?

So one of the best ways to deal with fear is to start to let go of that process in the mind which says, This is myself. And so when you're meditating, for example, instead of you becoming the meditator, instead of the mind becoming the meditator or the meditation, create a space where the mind is watching itself meditate, as it were. So the attitude in the meditation should be something like, I'm just observing a movie in a movie theater, and things are happening.

This is what's known as metacognition, as loving-kindness, but metacognition in terms of awareness of awareness. Understanding how your mind is moving. That's it. When you create that space, you stop clutching and grasping at things as mine. So if they go away, you're not afraid of them being lost. Now, fear can arise at even deeper stages of the practice. And that fear arises from what's known as conceit. It is holding on to things because it's afraid that it's going to go away when it ceases, when whatever is going to happen, it's going to go away. For those kinds of situations, the easiest thing to do, if you're at that stage, I would say, is to go back one step or two steps that led you to that deeper state, so that you cultivate stronger levels of that state for now. Equanimity is a great antidote for that, because that means that it's such a good foundation that there is disenchantment and dispassion that naturally arises.

But if the mind gets enchanted, whether it gets interested in something or gets afraid of something, then that means you need to cultivate something previous to that disenchantment or whatever was arising. Whether that's equanimity, or whether that's tranquility, or whether that's joy, or whatever it might be. So be aware of that fear, try to relax it, and then cultivate whatever it was that you were cultivating before, instead of letting the mind be worried about what happens next. Am I going to lose myself? And in the interviews, I'll give you a special way of dealing with that as well, person basis, so if that's happening then I'll give you a certain technique that you can use as well. I wanted to thank you for bringing up the attitude of playfulness and experimentation. I've been away from meditation for a while, and having been... I thought things were too serious, or I didn't give myself permission to experiment much until now.

So I will, going forward. Thank you. Sadhu. Anyone else? When you talked about restlessness, then you said that it's related to taking something not yours. So if you think about worry, maybe that's related to real-world events that you don't have control about, how do you see that? How do you look at that? In reality, and this might not be the answer that everyone's looking for, but in reality, nothing is ours. Nothing belongs to us, and we don't belong to anyone. That's the reality of the situation. And this can only be understood when you get to a deeper, granular level of reality in the practice and in the meditation. So, yes, there are difficult situations in life.

Yes, there are terrible things happening in the world. Control, whether that's helping somebody, whether that's offering resources or whatever it might be, but ultimately we can only do so much, and the outcome of what we do is also outside of our control. So we should take refuge in our abilities to be able to do what it is we can do, and then allow things to unfold as they are. The other thing is with samsara, things are always very complicated, and there will always be difficult situations to deal with. This isn't the first time something has happened. This isn't the second time this has happened. This might be the thousand or the millionth time.

And every single time it happens has a different kind of permutation in terms of however it arises. So all we can do is notice how we are taking it, what our perceptions of that reality are, and then notice if there's peace in our mind or not, because that's what it starts with. If it's starting to cause us worry, if it's starting to cause us agitation, then we have to recognize that and we have to let go of that, and then come back to a more wholesome, more unified, more equanimous state of mind. And from there, an intuitive action can arise, which might be helpful for the situation or at the very least for ourselves in that situation.

I would like to know how to do the forgiveness practice. Or is that something for a personal interview? Yeah, I'll tell you all about it in the personal interview. Thank you. Yeah, one more behind you. Forgive me if I'm jumping ahead. You mentioned something about a stretching practice you might share to do? Oh, yeah. So this is a very simple practice. This is something that I learned from my time doing kriya yoga, and it's an asana that you can do, a yogic posture. It's like a full body stretch. It's pretty easy to do. If you can, you can even try to do it in a chair while you're in a chair. It's a forward bending pose. And what that is, is you would stretch your right leg outward and keep your left leg bent, and then you would bend forward and try to touch your toes.

And as you try to touch your toes, you feel the entire stretch throughout your back. And then when you try to touch your toes, if you're able to touch your toes and you pull your toes towards you, you'll feel the entire stretch towards your legs. Before you bend forward, you want to take a breath in and hold it. And when you hold it and you bend forward, you want to tuck your chin towards your chest. That way you feel the stretch here as well, in the top part of your neck and spine. You do that for the right leg, you do that for the left leg, and you do that for both legs.

Many times, as seems necessary, but it is a great stretch to do prior to sitting down for practice. When you say you bend your legs, do you mean you open the hip up, or you bend the knee back? You open the hip up like this. If there's nothing else, we can 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.