Working with Hindrances
A gentle path of mindful phrasing, allowance, feeling, and awareness
Difficult mind states are not failures. They are conditions appearing in awareness, and they can be met with clarity, kindness, and wise practice.
This page offers a simple way to work with the five hindrances in Theravada Buddhism, while also showing how turning toward experience and resting as awareness can complement that practice beautifully.
What Are the Hindrances?
In Theravada Buddhism, the hindrances are common conditions of mind that can cloud clarity and make practice feel more difficult. They are not signs that anything has gone wrong. They are simply patterns arising in experience.
The five hindrances are:
- Sense desire — wanting, craving, reaching
- Ill will — anger, resistance, aversion
- Sloth and torpor — heaviness, dullness, sleepiness
- Restlessness and worry — agitation, tension, unease
- Doubt — uncertainty, mistrust, confusion
These are not personal defects. They are passing states. When met skillfully, they can become part of the path itself.
A Gentle Way to Work with Hindrances
A simple and skillful approach is:
Recognize → Allow → Feel → Rest
This sequence keeps the practice kind and direct. It avoids suppression, over-analysis, and struggle.
1. Recognize
Begin by gently naming what is here.
- There is wanting.
- There is anger.
- There is restlessness.
- There is doubt.
This simple naming is close to bare noting. It reduces blame, softens personalization, and brings the mind into clear seeing.
2. Allow
Instead of fighting the experience, let it be here.
Allowing does not mean indulging it or agreeing with it. It means dropping the extra struggle.
“This too belongs.”
This step can be very healing. It gives the nervous system permission to soften.
3. Feel
Bring attention into the body. Where is the hindrance felt? Is it tight, hot, shaky, heavy, pressing, moving?
Let yourself feel the experience directly, with care. You do not need to fix it. You are simply allowing it to be known.
“You are allowed to be here.”
4. Rest
Once the experience has been recognized and allowed, gently open out.
Ask:
“What is aware of this?”
This question is not meant to create more thinking. It is meant to help attention relax back into the aware space in which the experience appears.
The hindrance may still be present, but it is no longer the whole of you.
Helpful Classical Supports
In the Theravada tradition, each hindrance also has helpful balancing practices:
- Ill will → loving-kindness
- Restlessness → calming the breath
- Sloth → energizing attention
- Desire → contemplating impermanence
- Doubt → returning to direct experience
These can be very supportive, but the deeper work often begins with simple seeing and allowing.
Two Complementary Directions of Practice
The uploaded material also brings in Rupert Spira’s way of describing two complementary approaches. These can sit alongside the hindrances practice in a very natural way.
1. Turning Toward Experience
This direction says: do not move away from the experience. Move closer.
Feel the emotion directly. Let it unfold in the body. Welcome it without suppression. This resembles tantric-style practice, deep acceptance work, and somatic mindfulness.
2. Resting as Awareness
This direction turns attention away from the content of experience and toward the awareness that knows it.
Rather than staying inside the emotion, you notice the open aware presence in which the emotion appears. This brings space, quiet, and freedom.
How These Approaches Work Together
These approaches do not have to compete. They can support one another beautifully.
For example, if anxiety appears:
- Recognize: “There is anxiety.”
- Allow and Feel: Let the anxiety be here. Notice where it lives in the body.
- Rest as Awareness: Gently ask, “What is aware of this anxiety?”
This creates a complete practice:
See clearly → Allow fully → Feel directly → Rest as awareness
One part brings clarity. One part reduces resistance. One part reveals the open space in which all experience comes and goes.
A Simple Practice for Emotional Suffering
Try This Gently
1. Name it
There is sadness. There is fear. There is anger.
2. Let it be here
This too belongs. You are allowed to be here.
3. Feel it in the body
Where is it strongest? Is it moving, tightening, warming, shaking?
4. Open into awareness
Ask softly: What is aware of this?
5. Close with kindness
This too belongs. I am here.
Even a short moment of this practice can help. Ten seconds is enough. One breath is enough. The point is not to force a result. The point is to stay close, honest, and kind.
Mindful Phrases You Can Use
Because this site is centered on mindful phrasing, here are simple phrases drawn from this teaching that can support daily practice:
- There is fear.
- There is restlessness.
- This too belongs.
- You are allowed to be here.
- Let this be felt.
- What is aware of this?
- I am here.
- Nothing has gone wrong.
These are not magic words. They are gentle guides that help the mind and heart return to presence.
Reflection Questions
- Which hindrance visits me most often?
- What changes when I name it instead of fighting it?
- Can I let the feeling be here without immediately fixing it?
- What happens when I ask, “What is aware of this?”
- Which short phrase feels most true and supportive for me right now?
Closing Thought
There is no need to make these states into enemies. Hindrances can be met as part of the human path. With gentle recognition, non-resistance, embodied feeling, and open awareness, even difficult experience can become workable.
You are not asked to become perfect. You are invited to become present.
See. Allow. Feel. Rest.
Continue Your Practice
You may wish to continue with:
Love is Everything — G. Ross Clark