Five hindrances
In Buddhism, the five hindrances (Pali: pañca nīvaraṇāni)[1] are negative mental states that impede success with meditation (jhāna / bhāvanā) and lead away from enlightenment (nibbāna). These states are:
- Sensual desire (kāmacchanda): Craving for pleasure to the senses.
- Anger or ill-will (byāpāda, vyāpāda): Feelings of malice directed toward others.
- Sloth-torpor or boredom (thīna-middha): Half-hearted action with little or no concentration.
- Restlessness-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): The inability to calm the mind.
- Doubt (vicikicchā): Lack of conviction or trust.
In the Pali Canon
In the Pali Canon's Samyutta Nikaya, several discourses juxtapose the five hindrances with the seven factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga).[2] For instance, according to SN 46.37, the Buddha stated:
- "Bhikkhus, there are these five obstructions, hindrances, corruptions of the mind, weakeners of wisdom. What five? Sensual desire... ill will... sloth and torpor ... restlessness and remorse... doubt....
- "There are, bhikkhus, these seven factors of enlightenment, which are nonobstructions, nonhindrances, noncorruptions of the mind; when developed and cultivated they lead to the realization of the fruit of true knowledge and liberation. What seven? The enlightenment factor of mindfulness... [discrimination of states... energy... rapture... tranquility... concentration...] equanimity....[3][4]
In terms of gaining insight into and overcoming the Five Hindrances, according to the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha proclaimed:
- How, monks, does a monk live contemplating mental objects in the mental objects of the five hindrances?
- Herein, monks, when sense-desire is present, a monk knows, "There is sense-desire in me," or when sense-desire is not present, he knows, "There is no sense-desire in me." He knows how the arising of the non-arisen sense-desire comes to be; he knows how the abandoning of the arisen sense-desire comes to be; and he knows how the non-arising in the future of the abandoned sense-desire comes to be.[5]
Each of the remaining four hindrances are similarly treated in subsequent paragraphs.
The Buddha gives the following analogies in the Samaññaphala Sutta (DN 2, "The Fruits of the Contemplative Life"):
- "... [W]hen these five hindrances are not abandoned in himself, the monk regards it as a debt, a sickness, a prison, slavery, a road through desolate country. But when these five hindrances are abandoned in himself, he regards it as unindebtedness, good health, release from prison, freedom, a place of security."[6]
Similarly, in the Saṅgārava Sutta (SN 46.55), the Buddha compares sensual desire with looking for a clear reflection in water mixed with lac, tumeric and dyes; ill will with boiling water; sloth-and-torpor with water covered with plants and algae; restlessness-and-worry with wind-churned water; and, doubt with water that is "turbid, unsettled, muddy, placed in the dark."[7]
From post-canonical Pali literature
|
method of
suppression |
path of
eradication |
sensual
desire |
first jhana based
on bodily foulness |
nonreturning or
arahantship[8] |
| ill will |
first jhana based
on metta |
nonreturning |
sloth and
torpor |
perception of light |
arahantship |
restlessness
and worry |
serenity |
arahantship and
nonreturning |
| doubt |
defining of phenomena
(dhammavavatthāna) |
stream-entry |
The Pali commentary's methods
and paths for escaping the hindrances. |
According to the first-century CE exegetic Vimuttimagga, the five hindrances include all ten "fetters": sense desire includes any attachment to passion; ill will includes all unwholesome states of hatred; and, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt include all unwholesome states of infatuation. The Vimuttimagga further distinguishes that "sloth" refers to mental states while "torpor" refers to physical states resultant from food or time or mental states; if torpor results from food or time, then one diminishes it through energy; otherwise, one removes it with meditation. In addition, the Vimuttimagga identifies four types of doubt:
According to Buddhaghosa's fifth-century CE commentary to the Samyutta Nikaya (Sāratthappakāsinī), one can momentarily escape the hindrances through jhanic suppression or through insight while, as also stated in the Vimuttimagga, one eradicates the hindrances through attainment of one of the four stages of enlightenment (see Table 1).[10]
See also
Notes
- ^ Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 376, entry for "Nīvaraṇa."
- ^ For example, in Samyutta Nikaya chapter 46, Bojjhanga-samyutta, discourses 46.31 through 46.40 are based on this juxtaposition (Bodhi, 2000, pp. 1589-94).
- ^ Bodhi (2000), pp. 1591-92. Bodhi elides the middle five factors of enlightenment, inserted here in square brackets, since all seven factors of enlightenment are identified previously multiple times in Bodhi's text.
- ^ Anālayo (2006), pp. 239-40, underlines:
- "To overcome the hindrances, to practise satipatthana, and to establish the awakening factors are, indeed, according to several Pali discourses, the key aspects and the distinctive features common to the awakenings of all Buddhas, past, present, and future."
Anālayo further supports this by identifying that, in all extant Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Satipatthana Sutta, only the five hindrances and seven factors of enlightenment are consistently identified under the dhamma contemplation section; contemplations of the five aggregates, six sense bases and Four Noble Truths are not included in one or more of these non-Pali versions.
- ^ Nyanasatta (1994).
- ^ Thanissaro (1997). Some correlate each individual hindrance with its sequentially matched metaphor, so that covetness is likened to being in debt, having ill will to sickness, sloth and torpor to imprisonment, having restlessness and anxiety to slavery, and doubt to traveling through uncertain terrain.
- ^ Bodhi (2000), pp. 1611-15; Walshe (1985), sutta 60, pp. 73-75.
- ^ Upatissa et al. (1995), p. 316, identifies that sense-desire is "destroyed through the Path of Non-Return." In the context of commenting on sutta SN 46.55, Bodhi (2005), p. 440, n. 14, states that sensual desire is "eradicated by the path of arahantship (since kāmacchanda is here interpreted widely enough to include desire for any object, not only sensual desire)".
- ^ Upatissa et al. (1995), pp. 91-92.
- ^ Regarding the Sāratthappakāsinī commentary, see Bodhi (2005), p. 440, n. 14. Regarding the Vimuttimagga commentary, see Upatissa et al. (1995), p. 316.
Sources
- Anālayo (2006). Satipatthāna: The Direct Path to Realization. Birmingham: Windhorse Publications. ISBN 1-899579-54-0.
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans.) (2000). The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya. Boston: Wisdom Pubs. ISBN 0-86171-331-1.
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu (ed.) (2005). In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon. Boston: Wisdom Pubs. ISBN 0-86171-491-1.
- Upatissa, Arahant and N.R.M. Ehara (trans.), Soma Thera (trans.) and Kheminda Thera (trans.) (1995). The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga). Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. ISBN 955-24-0054-6.
External links