It is often easier to recognize the hindrances when they are strong than when they are just arising. The onrushing election is a powerful trigger for strong unwholesome states/hindrances. So this might be a great time to see the hindrances at work.
When you think about the election, a strong desire for one result or the other may arise. Can you sense that desire? Is it comfortable? Probably not.
At the same time, there may be a strong aversion or anger or sense of ill will as you think of the forces opposing what you desire. You may find you feel helpless, furious, vengeful, bewildered, hurt, scared or any other of a list of negative emotions. Ask yourself. Is this a comfortable feeling or uncomfortable? Where and how do you experience it?
You might even notice it first as restlessness or distraction. Maybe even agitation. Maybe remorse that the group you are aligned with was not quicker to understand, or more sympathetic to the suffering of people who look toward the extremes for comfort.
You might notice a sense of apathy or helplessness, a wanting to go to sleep and wake up when it’s over.
Or you may notice doubt in the basic goodness of human beings, our leaders, newscasters, ourselves.
All of the hindrances are leaping around with abandon when we contemplate the approaching decision point or watch the news or talk to our freaked-out friends. As to your meditation practice, are you experiencing more restlessness, mind wandering, inattention? Is calm elusive? That in itself can be a source of doubt.
It’s harder for the mind to settle when it has been feeding on disturbing news, thoughts, conversations, texts, etc. We are surrounded with triggers for unwholesome states.
What are we to do?
The first thing is to recognize that suffering is present. The first noble truth - there is dukkha (big suffering, little suffering, annoyances, irritation, unleashed desire). This is suffering.
Next it is helpful to understand the causes for the suffering - the second noble truth. And the path to the end of suffering - the third noble truth.
One of the Buddha’s instructions is to guard the senses. Be careful how much news you ingest, notice when your heart rate, breathing, anxiety, agitation begins to rise. Some people stop watching the news but often out of aversion. Some can’t stop watching the news fixated like a deer frozen in the headlights. Guarding the senses means not closing yourself off from information but not dwelling overly long on it. It means going out for a walk in nature and enjoying it without getting tangled up - wanting to move to a forest, plant a new garden, own the path you’re walking on. Hearing a pleasant sound without straining for it to repeat - think birds singing. Or hearing an unpleasant sound and getting agitated because it won’t stop (the neighbor’s barking dog, the backup beep of a dump truck).
So guarding the senses asks us to notice what the input is, how it is affecting us, and to make the effort to step back from getting entangled in wanting or not wanting.
Easier said than done. We often find ourselves in a multiple hindrance attack. Wanting the election to be over, the results to be good, not wanting to hear any more negative news, agitated about not being control, and doubting everything about the practice including our ability to do it.
Underlying all of this are some very noble emotions and beliefs - we want equal justice for all people, we want war to stop, we want our environment to be protected and our world to calm down, we want fairness and opportunity for all, we want our voices and the voices of others to be heard, we want ourselves and others to be happy. There is a wonderful kernel of love present here.
This election is not just about the negative. It is also based on our love for ourselves and other humans, those who share our country with us as well as those who share the world with us.
And when that love sees suffering, compassion arises. We have all felt compassion for the suffering we hear in the news.
The Buddha had a list of antidotes for the hindrances. Having noble friends and noble conversations is key. Guarding our senses and not getting lost in fantasies about how great or horrible something is (it is rarely as our imagination projects) is another major one. Much learning. Inquiry into what we are experiencing. Moral behavior - not harming, not lying, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not overindulging in food, drink, gossip. It is hard to settle in meditation after engaging in behavior we’re not proud of.
To that list, I want to add compassion. We must begin to understand that desire is suffering, aversion is suffering, agitation and remorse are suffering, apathy and dullness of mind are suffering, and doubt is suffering. When we are caught in suffering, we yearn for clarity, calm, being centered, ease of mind and body, equanimity.
Can we hold our suffering, our pain, our annoyances with compassion? Can we extend compassion to others? Can we wish that others also hold their suffering with compassion?
This is a very powerful practice and one I worked with on retreat this September. Whenever I felt restlessness arise, I looked around for the cause and often found that my body had ceased to be comfortable or disturbing thoughts and fantasies had arisen in my mind. If I could bring my awareness back to my breath, I would. But if the mind kept bouncing back to restlessness or aversion, disturbing thoughts or the endless mental imaginings of heroics or disaster, I turned to compassion. And when I said the phrases of compassion, “May I hold my pain, my suffering with compassion", I found I looked for the deeper source of pain or suffering. Connecting with the pain was - well, painful! - but all the endless recycling thoughts of the hindrances ceased as I allowed, relaxed into, held the pain or discomfort and wished myself deep compassion.
And when I extended the compassion outward to others with whom my mind was at war, it allowed me to connect with how I cared about them. (This is not an instantaneous result but takes time and repetition.)
Since I have been back from retreat, it has become clearer and clearer to me that the love I feel for family, friends, neighbors, all inhabitants in this world is more important than the disagreements, arguments, injustices. This is not to belittle our desire for justice - but to help us stay connected to the current of love and compassion even as we work with fierceness toward our hope for a better future for all. Love and compassion are not passive qualities, but can be the basis of the arising of the warrior within us, can inhabit us with a fierceness to protect the weak, the seek justice, to do all we can toward a better world for all.
A friend shared this quote with me this week that captured this understanding:
“In the end, everything is either love or a distortion of it.” ~~ Ann C. Klein