Bruce Lee, master meditator.
This week the Five Hindrances to meditation practice keep coming into my consciousness. This is a Buddhist idea about the five most common kinds of thoughts and emotions that distract us during meditation practice.
Why share a Buddhist idea about meditation?
In my opinion, Buddhism offers a tremendous amount of academic knowledge about meditation. Even from a purely academic stand point, I feel that we can learn a lot from their 2,000 years of study of meditation practice! The amount of knowledge that they’ve collected and shared is a tremendous gift to meditation.
So, what are the Five Hinderances to meditation? What are the five most common mental-emotional distractions during meditation practice?
1. Desire (thinking about things that we want)
2. Rejection (thinking about things that we don’t want)
3. Tiredness (sleepiness, fatigue)
4. Anxiousness (frustration, anger, fear, etc.)
5. Doubt
Do you recognize any of these as distractions in your practice?
Whether you do or not, it can be fun to label your distractions as a way of letting them go… as a way of putting them down… as a way of practicing mindfulness by putting a bit of distance between yourself and any distracting thoughts and feelings.
In any case, if you find this helpful, please use it and if not don’t let it distract you!
Knowledge is power – and you know best about you.
Happy to help with any questions about this to the best of my abilities.
Happy Practicing,
Elena
From Wikipedia:
The five hindrances are:[1][2][3][web 1][web 2]
- Sensory desire (kāmacchanda): the particular type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and physical feeling.
- Ill-will (vyāpāda; also spelled byāpāda): all kinds of thought related to wanting to reject, feelings of hostility, resentment, hatred and bitterness.
- Sloth-torpor (thīna–middha): heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.
- Restlessness-worry (uddhacca–kukkucca): the inability to calm the mind from these emotions.
- Doubt (vicikicchā): lack of conviction or trust.