From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
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