Audio (TCP7, Day 08): Nine Stages, Stage Five (Damayati), Five Hindrances

A talk on the fifth stage of śamatha (calm abiding), damayati (“taming”), and the five hindrances (nīvaraṇa) — sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt — illustrated with the Buddha’s five water-bowl similes, followed by a self-guided silent sit.

Sakya tradition · IBA Kathmandu · The Complete Path (TCP) 2026 · English · Talk + silent sit

For the full Sanskrit/Pali/Tibetan glossary and nine-stages reference table, see the Glossary and Summary for Morning Meditations.

Transcript

So, good morning dear friends once again, welcome back another fresh start to TCP 2026 here at the International Buddhist Academy in Tinchuli Kathmandu. We have been making our way through an exploration of śamatha, vipaśyanā, calm and insight meditation, stopping, looking deeply, especially the nine stages of meditation.

We have been meeting some qualities of attention that we bring to our meditation object, at first forceful, then just interrupted, slowly becoming more and more familiar with our karmasthāna, our workplace, or gocara, the place where the cow is put to graze.

We have been moving through the stage of placing sthāpayati, placing for longer periods, saṃsthāpayati, replacing when distraction has interrupted our attention, avasthāpayati, slowly approaching more and more closely the meditation object, upasthāpayati, placing closely, and slowly we come to a stage of practice in which the mind becomes progressively tamed.

The illustration of the nine stages, the elephant begins very dark in color, constantly being led astray by the monkey mind, distracted by sense pleasures, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, mental images, stories, thoughts of past and future, but slowly the mind becomes more docile, pliant, tamed, and in order to reach this stage we have been needing to rely on our hearing, our reflection, our mindfulness, and now our clear understanding is called upon, samprajanya-bala, an introspective awareness in the same way that we can be aware of the landscape surrounding us.

It’s buildings, hills, mountains, an awareness of the inner landscape. What is arising for us in body and mind, feelings arising in the flesh and feelings arising in the mind? Are they wholesome states or are they unwholesome states, kusala or akusala?

And in order for us to navigate this inner landscape, there are some helpful signposts from the Buddha, the nīvaraṇas or hindrances to meditation practice, which are no doubt familiar to many of us. In the early teachings of the Buddha, there are five key hindrances that are identified for the practitioner of śamatha to be wary of, mindful of.

The first of these, grasping after sense pleasure, kāmacchanda, tānyùgài [貪欲蓋 tānyùgài, “hindrance of craving” — Chinese gloss]. Breaking it down, kama here refers to desire for sense pleasure, and chanda is the same chanda we met in its wholesome aspect in the first group of antidotes.

It’s like our intention or our aspiration by itself, neither particularly wholesome nor unwholesome, but when it has been captured by desire, so that we are voting with our feet, as it were, in the direction of sense pleasure, it becomes a hindrance to our meditation. The next, ill will, aversion, vyāpāda.

Already in the satipaṭṭhāna motto, we have met the invitation from the Buddha to practice, already to let go of both grasping and pushing away this aversion, abhijjhā-domanassaṃ, neither in craving nor dejection about the world, both in daily life, but also on the cushion.

Hence the invitation also not to give rise to frustration when distraction is present, because that mind of ill will that hates distraction, if you like, craving tranquility is not a mind that is tending towards tranquility. So perhaps we can feel there is an element of acceptance in this aspect of the practice.

Accepting even the discomfort, the unpleasant aspects of our practice, is sloth and torpor. It has a physical and a mental aspect, fatigue in the body, but also dullness and drowsiness of mind.

We also have agitation and remorse, sloth and torpor, styāna-middha in Sanskrit, excitement and regret, auddhatya-kaukṛtya, [auddhatya-kaukṛtya —] daojü, ezuo [掉舉惡作 dàojǔ èzuò, “restlessness and worry” — Chinese gloss, confirmed against the CH translator recording for day 10, which names this same hindrance pair].

Here we are invited to see the hindrance that lies in thoughts of the past, and also worries about the future. And here folded into our meditation practice is the key to why the cultivation of śīla, of the precepts, of wholesome conduct was the ground, the foundation for the Buddha’s instruction in meditation.

Because a mind that is constantly reminded or thinking about actions in the past which have caused harm are a source of regret, it is also not a mind that is tending towards tranquility. And once we arrive on the cushion, we really begin to see just how long those echoes can last in the mind when we have, through misjudgment or anger or ignorance, caused harm.

But it is also the moment in which we can begin to transform that same energy, that same recollection of past regret. On the cushion we have an opportunity to accept and to let go, creating the ground for future wholesome conduct in our recognition of past mistakes. But the invitation on the cushion is not to dwell in that recollection but to allow it to arise and to pass, letting go.

And the last hindrance in the Pali collection of five that we are invited to consider, we have already met in the fault to which mindfulness is antidote, it’s simply doubt, confusion, forgetting the instructions in the five faults system related to the nine stages. So much for the list of terms, thankfully the Buddha was very kind and recognized that it’s difficult to remember lists.

So he also offered some beautiful images, some similes, to help us to feel, to taste even, the nature of these hindrances, these veils, the nīvaraṇas. The first set, hopefully, are already familiar — they relate to bowls of water in different states. The first of these, for sense desire — maybe someone knows this one already — does anyone know what the water-bowl simile for kāmacchanda is, sense desire?

Please — yes, exactly: paint, or dye, or ink, tint. And actually the word for cessation of desire in the Ānāpānasati Sutta, virāga, for those who are familiar with the Pali terms for the last four exercises — virāga is exactly this image. Rāga is that which tints or stains, and maybe we can taste a little of that connection in the way that desire happens not just in mind but in body — it kind of permeates our being when it is strong. And if our bowl of water is filled with clear water, and then we add paint, dye, to it — what happens?

It becomes opaque. We can no longer see clearly — exactly what happens when desire has kind of perfused or infused the body, we no longer see clearly, with balanced perspective. And what about for ill will, vyāpāda? The simile: the water bowl, rolling and bubbling, unable to settle — also difficult to see through, difficult to see the reflection. For sloth and torpor, dullness, drowsiness in body and mind: imagining a bowl of water, at the base clear, but covered in algae or water plants growing thickly, so that we cannot see, cannot see through the water, no clarity. For restlessness, agitation, remorse, thoughts of past or future —

water that is being blown by the wind, constantly rippling, never able to settle and become calm. And we can see this in our own mind when thoughts are drawn into the past or into the future — maybe we are aware, from our own experience, how difficult it is to reach the end of that chain.

We think, oh, I’ll just think my way through that past situation a little bit more today and maybe I’ll reach a conclusion, finally put that story to rest. But the nature of stories is that they always have to be continued. Another chapter that we can add, another link in the chain. There is infinite detail that we can explore, unpack, chew on, mull over, play with, pick at the edges of.

The mind caught in stories of past or future is also not tending towards stillness and tranquility. And, without pretending that there are not situations in our lives that need our attention off the cushion, the invitation is to consider that here and now, on the cushion, the solution does not lie in further thinking, but in a letting go, allowing to settle, to become still, for that wind blowing across the surface of the water to subside, and for clarity to arise — the kind of clarity, actually, that can give rise to insight, that does help us to untangle the stories, the past worries about the future.

And the last simile for the water bowls, doubt: like mud and darkness, also no clarity. If we have forgotten the instructions, we can wander, as it were, in a swamp of different, sometimes even conflicting, instructions about the meditation. Or — should I have my eyes open or closed? Should I even be sitting now, or is it walking?

Is it the breath that I’m paying attention to, or the primordial clarity and emptiness of the nature of mind itself? We can go around and around and around. So, having clarity about the instructions — maybe not the whole path, but at least what I’m doing today — is very helpful.

This is why we also set a clear intention at the beginning of our meditation so that even if there are other wonderful attractive possibilities for meditation, today I’m just going to do this one, whichever it may be. Mettā Bhāvanā, loving kindness, awareness of breathing, staying with the chosen object, the chosen intention.

So these are five hindrances: desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, agitation and remorse, and doubt. These are five similes of water stained with dye, boiling, covered with weeds, blown by the wind, or in darkness and silt. And before I stop and we enjoy a silent meditation, also just to share five additional similes which I find very helpful because they are kind of in a positive register.

We have this kind of negative register, the unhelpful qualities of the hindrances. But in the positive sense, looking at them in terms of the feeling of release from the hindrances, we have five more similes.

And, in the case of kāmacchanda, sense desire: imagining the feeling of being released from debt, no longer owing. In the case of ill will: being cured of disease, freedom from that toxin or poison of anger, ill will. For sloth and torpor: the feeling of being released from prison. When the mind is dull, the body is fatigued, we can feel kind of like we are in bondage — trapped, narrowed, restricted.

Here, imagining someone imprisoned for some time in a cramped cell, being free to move, to stretch, to breathe. For regret and anxiety: freedom from slavery, no longer at the beck and call of regret for the past, anxiety for the future — free to choose fresh in this moment.

In terms of doubt, imagining someone lost in the desert, trackless, full of bandits and dangers, finally finding the oasis and being able to drink, quenching their thirst, no longer wandering, unsure of which way to go.

In order that we have some time to put these images into practice, these feelings, I will stop there, and just flag that in a future session we will return to these, and explore how we can divide them into two main categories: those tending to sinking, and those tending to rising and agitation. And, in this way, we can connect them directly to the five-faults-and-antidote system in the nine stages, because rising and sinking are the two subtle, even tendencies that emerge as our main task in the stage of taming. And it is samprajanya, the clear knowing that this is a mind tending downwards, sinking, or a mind tending into agitation, that helps us to begin to balance these hindrances.

So this is an on-the-cushion contemplation. Of course, we recognize the root kleśas in the first three hindrances — desire, aversion, ignorance — and there are ways to work with these in daily life, loving-kindness meditation as an antidote to aversion, for example. But here we can simply work in this binary sense: is the mind tending to agitation or to sinking? And applying the appropriate antidote.

If the mind is very tranquil, tending downwards, bringing energy; and if the mind is already agitated, not adding fuel to that fire but working towards tranquility. So we’ll explore that aspect in a little more detail in a future session, but for now, let us sit — finding a comfortable position, establishing our motivation for the practice, an awakening heart, and our intention for this sit.

Perhaps we are working to find the breath in the body, to meet that experience where it is clear, vivid, looking for continuity of attention. Perhaps there is a hindrance that is in the foreground of our practice in recent sessions that we are working to soften, to let go of.

Perhaps we are finding counting of the breath a helpful support in that patching up and replacing, recognizing when distraction has arisen, rejoicing even, and coming back to the breath. Perhaps we are finding support in the cultivation of loving-kindness, and we can choose to work with that cultivation, and whichever object we choose, bringing energy, clear understanding, mindfulness, and letting go.

As we conclude, briefly reviewing our session, perhaps now with a name for the face of certain hindrances that have been arising in our practice — maybe a sense of a little more flexibility in how we relate to those obstacles, those difficulties, thanks to clarity of understanding.

That is my hope, anyway, that this quality of experience is slowly arising. And maybe, in the interest of that clarity, if we have any questions related to the content of today’s session, or even just an experience, a reflection, something that is arising for you — perhaps even if it doesn’t have a name — would you mind trekking up to the microphone? No?

Well, in that case, if you would like to ask your question, and I can repeat it into this microphone. The question is in regard to joint pain, experiencing painful feelings in the body and therefore needing to move. One of my main meditation teachers, Thomas Dhammadipa, he shares often: “I have a body, I have a disaster.”

The expectation of finding ease and comfort in this body that is lasting is something that I think slowly fades with age. Actually, we find it’s quite unrealistic to expect comfort in this body for any length of time once we reach a certain age.

But if it’s possible to relate to that experience with understanding and acceptance, perhaps that this is actually inevitable, then, hopefully, alongside that experience, of aversion in the mind, arises a quality of balance and equanimity, that beside the hindrance, with awareness, arises a different quality of mind than aversion. And actually, sitting still, in and of itself, is not a path to awakening.

If this was true, then all we would need is powerful anesthetic, and we would be able to sit for hours and hours and hours, but no transformation would be accessible. So, in and of itself, stillness is just a support for the mind to grow still.

And if we need to move in order for the mind to find that stillness, then, as long as it’s mindful, as long as we don’t lose that golden thread of connection to the meditation object of that session, then painful feeling need not be a hindrance, as such. It is dukkha, but it is just the first arrow.

The second arrow is the one in which I give rise to ill will, anger even, frustration, dissatisfaction, dejection, depression even, at the arising of this painful experience in the body. So, if stillness for me involves every few minutes gently adjusting my posture, maybe taking a few deep breaths — wonderful, fine, skillful means. Perhaps sitting in a chair is my chrysanthemum posture.

It may be comfortable for a day or two, but then, surprise surprise, even sitting in a chair is not permanently comfortable, and we need to shift. Maybe lying down is a conducive meditation posture for me. So there’s lots of different ways we can approach that uncomfortable experience. We needn’t feel like stillness itself — if it’s rigidity and aversion, then that stillness has become a hindrance.

So I wish you good luck, and I resonate with this difficulty, because I think all of us have a part of the body that is not a fan of our meditation practice, whether it’s your left hip, or your right hip, or your left knee, or your right knee.

There’s always someone who’s not a team player, but hopefully we can also welcome that member of the team in as none other than the deity, and, in this way, open up a space in our heart and mind for acceptance, and a stillness that is conducive rather than a hindrance. I think we have reached the end of our time. No more questions.

So, with that, I wish you all good luck and a wonderful day, and see you again tomorrow morning. This morning was a silent sit; tomorrow we once again have a guided sit, and continue, I think, with our cultivation, perhaps of loving-kindness, based on that question — maybe it’s time for some mettā also.