- sensual desire
- anger
- restlessness
- drowsiness
- doubt
LUST: Sense desire (craving, gluttony, five strand sensuali-ty) is a great distraction from serenity, mindfulness, and en-lightenment. Concentration is the antidote. When the mind is strong enough to (seemingly) effortlessly stay on a single object, there is no danger of falling into the trap of discomfitting lust, greed, and yearning.
ANGER: Ill-will is a miserable tendency that destroys calm, cool, collected states of mind in a blinding instant -- like an explosive hot flash reducing everything to cinders. Not all but most people recognize anger as anathema and unpleasant.
Most people do not realize how much annoyance, irritation, and ill directed resentment they're carrying around -- that is, until they try to sit peacefully and silently for a few minutes. The antidote is cultivating kindness (metta), compassionate recognition (karuna), and joy-in-others-happiness (mudita). These give rise to a sublime state of looking on (upekkha) with acceptance and understanding. One becomes unflappable but perfectly able to respond. "Warm detachment" -- not to be confused with cold indifference. Try it, taste it, and you'll agree. Think about it, prejudge, and you'll argue.
RESTLESSNESS and worry, or being scattered, results from inattention to the object and too much effort. More effort makes one more awkward. inartful, and inarticulate. The more one wants something, the LESS one is able to get it. Think dating. Less apparent concern with the outcome, more confidence, paradoxically, MORE success. And with more success, more confidence.
Every Hollywood teen romance tells us so. The relaxed sports star, not the uptight scholar, gets all the dates. And more thinking won't make it otherwise. The same is true in meditation and teasing out the light of a concentrated mind coupled with a pacified heart (appeasement). Too much effort quickly leads to dissatisfaction and prematurely giving up.
DROWSINESS (sloth and torpor) occurs for two reasons. The truth will out on the cushion. Making too little effort -- whether from a lack of rest, lack of confidence, indiffer-ence, or stressed adrenals from an exhausting ("modern") lifestyle -- is one reason.
The other is a habit of delusion (moha) or foolishness (bala): If in the past (as now) one was not keen to hear the Truth, not interested in things as they are, but negligent, heedless, inattentive, then mindfulness, diligence, and one-pointedness leading to insight will take more time. Rest well before sitting, and persevere. Persistence and regularity are antidotes to pernicious drowsiness. Sporadic drowsiness is easier to deal with:
Get up. Walk around. Go somewhere cooler. Look up into the sky or at bright lights. Exercise. Splash water. Get rested up. Cup your eyes. Breathe fully. Tug on your earlobes. One yoga move, and there are many, was recently co-opted by a famous teacher and dubbed Superbrain Yoga. It's called thoppu karanam: pull your left ear with your right hand, and your right ear with your left while staring straight ahead and repeatedly squatting. It's good for autism and mental wandering (Hinduism Today, Summer 2009). For more simple solutions to boost vitality and energy instantly, see the work of Donna Eden.
DOUBT or nagging, distracting uncertainty (a lack of confi-dence in the Teaching, the Teacher, or the Taught) is overcome in two ways. Simply set it aside for now and meditate. Or get up and get your questions answered. There are many books, many teachers, many ways of explaining.
Entangled, caught in an All-Embracing Net of Views, one will not find a way out. Discursive thinking is a crutch. The way to meditation (kammatthana), to enlightenment (bodhi), or to skill in concentration (samadhi) is NOT thinking. It is not.
Thinking does many amazing things, but it does not lead to the goal (nirvana) nor even mundane accomplishments. Take the first route: suspend disbelief, lay down the doubting mind, abandon reasoning from a position of faulty assumptions. The Truth is true; your thinking won't make it otherwise. The Truth is here to see and inviting. There's a time to argue, a time to study, a time to investigate and question. That time is certainly not when you sit on a mat and cushion.
MEDITATION
Sitting is the time to practice -- like an idyllic childhood spent spinning a wheel with a stick -- mindful, seemingly effortless, accepting what comes along and overcoming simply with peace and persistence. To discouraged Hindus and Christians, this epoch is the dreaded Kali Yuga and the End Times, a dark age but in no way the end in the cycling of time and history. Ultimately and with each decision, we create our world. "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right!" Things are what they are. More importantly, a world is what I make of it. Meditation, like life, is a canvass. And any painting is possible. Since things are not directly under our control, we influence and guide our lives. Our decisions and deeds lead to results and fruits, some immediate and some eventual. No one looks back and regrets meditating. But those who regret never starting or not starting sooner are twenty cents for two dozen.
