Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Five hidrances (五蓋)
The sky goes from dark to light. When the sky light up, the birds and insects awaken. How does the sky go dark? Did we lose the sun? Did it disappear and then suddenly reappear? No, the sun is still there. In the universe, the plants in our solar system, the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon rotate and revolve in their orbits. Every 24 hours, the rotation brings day and night.
In ancient India, a day was divided into six periods, three for daytime, three for night. Now we designate 24 hours as a complete cycle of day and night, which we know is how long it takes for the Earth to rotate [360 degrees]. As you see, now night begins around 6 p.m., as the sky gradually darkens, and ends in the early morning light. In summer, the sky lights up around 4 a.m. By autumn, when night and day are equal in length, daylight begins around 5 or 6 a.m. Then we can start to see our surroundings clearly. At night, it is hard to see, because the sun in blocked by the Earth. Due to the Earth’s rotation, when the Sun is blocked, it is night.
If we walk around outside at night, we need lights, otherwise our surroundings are covered in darkness and we cannot see the road. Similarly, we ordinary people all have a luminous innate nature. The Ultimate Realm of Dharma is about wisdom. This pure wisdom lies within our innate nature. With wisdom, we can illuminate everything. Be they people or situations, they all become crystal clear. However, a tiny stirring of ignorance in our minds will cause wisdom to be obstructed. When wisdom is shrouded, it is dark like night. In learning Buddhism, we should explore where our minds are. Similarly, we should investigate what else may shroud us, besides the ignorance that obscures wisdom.
There are roughly five. First is greed. Second is anger. Third is sleep. Four is regret. Fifth is doubt. These five things can obstruct our wisdom. They obscure our minds, and block our wisdom from us. Take a lamp that is very bright, if we wrap it with a thick piece of cloth, the light does not shine through. Similarly, even if the sun is very bright, if we stay in a room where all the windows are boarded up it will be pitch black. The sunlight is prevented from entering the room. That is the meaning of hindrance.
The Five Hindrances cover our minds. Desire obstructs us. When afflictions cloud our pure nature, our pure wisdom disappears. When it disappears, we are prone to ignorant thoughts and reckless actions. Afflictions emerge, creating bad karma, which leads to karmic retribution.
If the Five Hindrances cloud our minds and obscure our pure innate nature, wisdom vanishes and ignorance emerges. When virtuous wisdom disappears, negative conditions manifest.
Therefore, we must understand what has clouded our minds. We must figure it out at once. Greed is most detrimental to our Wisdom-life. Desire begins with attachment. When we start clinging to things, desire and grasping arises, and we enter the state of the Five Desires. Previously we talked about how our sense organs encounter external objects and conditions and start to lead our minds astray. When those three things become one, ignorance takes over completely. It all begins with a tiny delusional thought.
Therefore, we must take good care of our minds. The first Hindrance is desire, or greed. Greed and desire hinder us. The second Hindrance is anger. Anger and Ill-will also hinder us. “Challenges cause anger, obscuring the mind.” This is human nature.
We often say we practice to become enlightened. After enlightenment, what we have realized is wisdom. But when we turn away from enlightenment and toward sense objects, we have deviated from the path of enlightenment. Besides sense objects, we also interact with external conditions.
As it is said, “challenging conditions cause anger.” In that case we deviate from a truly enlightened state. If we surrender to external conditions, our unsatisfied greed turns into anger and our minds are filled with hatred, resentment, and hostility. When we are filled with these negative emotions, anger gradually and continually emerges. This is the second Hindrance.
Once we lose our temper, integrity and morality are forgotten. We go against everything we know. When we are filled with resentment, we ignore the good. There is an old saying, “We do not talk about the nine wonderful meals, just the one cold one.”
So even if we were nice to someone nine times out of ten and only acted nasty once, that one time erases the nine acts of kindness. People only remember the one negative experience. This how ordinary people behave. We are prone to create karma and do wrong. We do not practice empathetic understanding, but just focus on maintaining hate.
Anger hinders our minds and leads us away from the path of enlightenment. Entangled with external objects and conditions, we are trapped in the bitter and hate-filled Sea of Suffering with no way out.
The third Hindrance is sleep. Everyone, how much time is there? There are limited hours of daylight. If day breaks around 6 a.m., that is quite early. Practitioners like us are already up. We rise after 3 a.m. to start morning recitations at 4 a.m. in the main hall. We do this for ourselves. We leave the main hall by 6 a.m. to start our day. After breakfast, we spend all day maximizing our potential. Let us see how many hours there are.
If we start at 6 a.m., including time for meals, and work till 6 p.m., how many hours are there? Not many. After 6 p.m., we start to wrap up our work, and begin our personal time. Will we be diligent or waste that time? The evening hours belong to us. Should we use them wisely? Or waste them away?
Then there is time for sleep. Sleep is like a short death everyone, every day. With our ultimate death, we wait for another life. With a short death, we wait for tomorrow.
Sleeping is like a short death. A short death leads to tomorrow. The ultimate death leads to another lifetime.
If we sleep at 10 p.m., and wake at 3:50 a.m., how long did we rest? Is it enough? Some people say no, that is not enough. Is a day not divided into three parts, eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for sleep? 2/3 of the day is spent on rest or sleep. Are we really only working for eight hours? Those who work spend eight hours at work, or 1/3 of their time.
Think about this, if we are 60 now, before we were 20 we were mostly studying, shopping, and relied on our parents. The earliest we start working is around 20. Look at our collegiate volunteers, some are still in school in their 20s. Some study until they are 30. Think about this: If someone starts working at 20 and retires at 60, then they have worked for 40 years? It is only 40 years if we count it loosely. We are only working 1/3 of that time, spending eight tours at work. What is 1/3 of 40 years? A little more than 13 years. Many people nowadays like to say that “I have worked for over ten years. It’s time to take it easy. I should retire soon.” Think about it. The true value of our lives is to use our bodies to benefit and help others. Interacting with other people makes our lives meaningful.
If we count just breathing as living, then we are simply consuming. According to Buddhism, we are depleting blessings, simply indulging, and exhausting the earth’s resources without contributing to society. This is a life that consumes goods and blessings. Therefore, we should use our time wisely.
Attachment to sleep causes one to waste time. If we only know to indulge and consume resources without benefitting society, we live a life that consumes goods and blessings. Using our bodies to create blessings for society and to cultivate virtues, we live a truly worthwhile life.
Look at our recycling volunteers, they are still outside at midnight. Again and again I beg them "Don't do this. Don't be outside at midnight." But they say, "If we can't work outside at night, can we go first thing in the morning?" And when is first thing in the morning? Around 1 to 2 a.m. See, they have started by 2 or 3 a.m., 3 or 4a.m.
I asked them why they start so early. They said, "Didn't you say that life is short, too much sleep is a waste of time, the more you do, the more you gain." Yes, the more we do, the more we gain. It all depends on a single moment's thought. Sleep shortens our Wisdom-life, which we should not waste. We have so many great opportunities; but we rest and sleep, and waste away our lives.
Our virtues must be nurtured, so we must seize the moment to offer something to this world. Time, space and relationships are very important. Furthermore, the Hindrance of sleep causes us to feel hazy and heavy. Our minds are cloudy. The more we sleep, the groggier we feel, and the less clearly we think. Someone says, "What's the matter? Aren't you awake?" Indeed, because of sleep, even if we are awake and see external conditions, our brains are still asleep. Once sleep and drowsiness become a habit, we are in a daze. Even though we are interacting with external phenomena, our drowsy minds are obscured, so we do not hear what others say. We cannot differentiate true Dharma from false, good words from evil. Our scattered minds are not awake. Just like before daybreak, our minds are hazy, bodies heavy.
Sleeping for a long time is not relaxing. The more we sleep, the sorer and heavier our bodies feel. Therefore, we really need to elevate our spirits. First, treasure your Wisdom-life; second, make good use of your life; third, devote yourselves to benefiting others; fourth, never be an ordinary person who only lives to consume.
We want to live a genuine and meaningful life, and strive to be very mindful in our interactions with others. As for our Wisdom-life, the more we sleep, the murkier it becomes, because sleep is one of the Five Hindrances. They obscure the mind, especially the Hindrance of sleep. People who think sleeping is not bad, feel righteous about it, so they continue to doze and their minds are clouded, their bodies heavy. It is definitely not beneficial to our Wisdom-life or physical life. "Do not allow Hindrances to cloud your nature." If we do not apply clarity and wisdom in our daily lives to clearly see and deal with everything, is it not a pity? That is why we call death a "long sleep." Nightly sleep is a short death, so we should keep it short, and not oversleep. Sleeping too long is no different from dying.
Everybody, we should take care of our minds and use our time wisely. So with the time, space and interactions we have, we diligently practice until it becomes natural. If we remain in the same spot without advancing, time continues to pass and our bodies age and deteriorate.
Everyone, we should seize this opportunity, while we still have good health and stamina, to do all we can and realize our potential.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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