Restlessness and Worry
Photo by Marcus Woodbridge
The five hindrances are the obstacles that prevent us from settling into the clarity and stillness of our minds.
In this talk, Zuisei explores the third hindrance—restlessness and worry—and examines the various ways that we can counter it, primarily by paying close attention to what’s going on in our minds.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Happy Valentines Day! May we love and care for one another, today and always.
There was once a woman who was very wealthy. She lived on top of a hill overlooking her town, in a walled in mansion with a guard at the gate. The woman had been a student of meditation for about a year, and she was always talking about the things she learned from her teacher. One evening, before going to her class, she pulled aside the guard to have a talk with him.
“All the neighbors have been robbed recently,” she said. “I want you to be very mindful and protect the house carefully.”
“I certainly will, ma’am,” said the guard.
The woman went to her class and had a lovely time, but when she came back she saw to her horror that her house had been robbed.
“I told you to be mindful!” she said to the guard. “You didn’t do your job!”
“But ma’am, I was mindful,” said the guard. “I saw the robbers coming into your house and I noted, ‘Robbers coming in. Robbers coming in.’
Then I saw them going out with your jewelry and I noted, ‘Jewelry going out. Jewelry going out.’”
I heard this story from Ajahn Brahmavamso—also known as Ajhan Brahm. I’d been writing a short piece for Tricycle on restlessness and worry, and when I heard this story I thought it’d be a good entry point into working with this particular hindrance, and to look at how to apply our attention—appropriate attention.
In Buddhism there are five hindrances, five obstacles to meditation- there are really seven, since two are paired up. They are: desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt. We can think of them as the overarching categories for all the many states of mind that prevent us from settling down. And we could think, well, there are others: what about boredom? What about anger? What about distraction?
Boredom fits nicely into either torpor or restless. Anger can go under ill will. Distraction is a form of restlessness. So I thought today we’d look at restlessness and worry—because desire we’ve talked about at length. Also ill will, primarily in the form of anger. Sloth and torpor, I’ll touch on during the zazenkai, since this hindrance shows itself particularly during long periods of meditation And so that leaves us with the fourth hindrance: restlessness & worry (remorse). But before we get to it, let me briefly summarize the others, because as is true of every state of mind we can identify, it inter-is with every other state. One leads to another or complements it or supports it.
Desire we know well: it is not wanting what we have (illness, money, this partner, that job), wanting what we don’t have (health, beauty, a bigger house), and having what we want, and not being able to keep it (because it doesn’t last).
Let me note here, though, that when we speak of desire in Buddhism we’re referring specifically to sensual desire, which tends to dull those our senses. It’s desire that dulls the body and the mind. It does not refer to our basic needs, like wanting food when you’re hungry, or shelter when you lack shelter. It’s not even about the desire itself, but about the discontent that it engenders. It’s that longing, that craving, that makes it hard to rest in our lives as they are.
Desire is like that character No-Face in the Miyazaki movie, Spirited Away. I don’t know if you saw that. No-Face is this tall, hooded figure with a mask, slits for eyes. And he feeds on greed, swallowing people whole, getting larger and more ravenous as he goes. Sensual desire is like that; we want more and more and more. And the more we have, the duller we get, and the hungrier we become. The Buddha uses the simile of a pot of water when speaking about these hindrances Desire is a pot of water in which you throw in paint—red, yellow, blue, orange. Mixed in with all those bright colors, those dazzling colors, the water is no longer clear. And after a short while, the colors themselves lose their luster. They get all mixed up and turn a dull brown, or gray, making the water even darker.
Ill will is the opposite of desire; it’s aversion or hostility. We push away what we’d like to avoid or we wish harm—subtly or not so subtly—to someone who has what we don’t. Someone we think we dislike Cultivating ill will is choosing to put our attention on what doesn’t help us, on everything that we dislike or feel unhappy about. Ill will is like a child throwing a tantrum and getting angrier and angrier because they don’t have what they want.
Ill will is like a pot of boiling water. The more fuel you add to it, the hotter it gets. And as the water bubbles, you can’t see your reflection in it. You can’t see yourself, and you can’t see others So you have to turn off the fire, let the water cool. You have to cut off the fuel so the water goes from boiling to simmering to standing.
Sloth and torpor present as boredom, disinterest, apathy. Think of sleepiness during zazen—when it has a physical cause, it’s letting you know your body needs to rest. But very often it’s a kind of shut-down. Maybe we don’t want to feel a painful feeling, but we can’t just turn to our phone, switch on the television. Instead we check out.
This is the pot of water in which moss and lichen have grown. They create a tangled mass on the surface of the water, and we can’t see our reflection. (I just flashed on an image of our shared refrigerator in college; one of my roommates was not into cleaning and she left food in the fridge so long that it grew legs and walked off—I’m exaggerating, but not a lot.)
Doubt is the last hindrance, but this one I’d like to talk about too, so let me leave it for later.
And finally restlessness and worry—or restlessness and remorse. I even found another translation that calls these “flurry and guilt-feeling." Remorse is our preoccupation over things we’ve done in the past. Worry covers all our preoccupation, past, present, and future. And it takes so many forms: anxiety, fear, guilt, regret, anticipation. Kukkucca, the Pali for worry, means literally “bad-done-ness”). So maybe we worry about our practice, about getting it right, about we’ve done or not done. And as we do, our minds get weaker, as it were. They lose their power.
But you know, worry, like guilt, is what I call a useless emotion It gives us a sense of doing something about a situation we’re uneasy about, when in reality it’s doing nothing except adding to the problem. I do something—I respond to someone in a way that hurts them somehow—and now I feel guilty about it, berating myself, “How could you do that? What were you thinking? You’re horrible? Now they don’t like you…” This is doing nothing to alleviate the other person’s hurt and it’s not making me feel better—on the contrary. It makes a painful situation excruciating (but it does give me the false sense that I’m doing something).
It’s so hard to sit with our discomfort. It’s so hard to sit with our hurt, with our shame, with our sadness. It’s so hard to admit that we’re not in control. Isn’t it? I find it hard. I find it very hard. But I find it even harder to beat myself up, to be constantly worrying or constantly moving away from myself.
Together, restlessness and worry are the physical and mental agitation that keep us from being able to settle in our seats, in our bodies, in our minds. Restlessness is that feeling of wanting to jump out of your skin. Of not being able to focus for more than a few seconds at a time.
“Oh, I can’t sit still!” This is the phrase I hear most often when I tell people I practice meditation. But restlessness is just a symptom. It’s not the reason we can’t sit still, be with ourselves.
You’re sitting there, quietly following your breath, when you suddenly think, “Must defrost the fridge. Now!” “I must write that letter—that I haven’t even thought about in a month but now is the time.” I think of how many hours I spent drawing up budgets and creating ad campaigns and developing new products for the store during zazen.
Restlessness creates a false sense of urgency—I have to do this I have to move or I’ll die. Except we won’t. Unless we’re having a heart attack while sitting, we’re not going to die. It’s just that whatever we’re experiencing in that moment feels unbearable, and not being able to bear it, we jump, we turn away, we go alphabetize our bookshelf. And this particular hindrance is contagious. The turbulent water spills out of the pot, getting others wet. It’s like when an anxious person in a crowd makes the whole group anxious.
But let’s look at what’s really happening. To be restless means to be without rest. It’s like a prisoner who’s not able to move freely. The mind is captured, the body is captured, and they’re led this way and that by our agitation. Or it’s like a gold brick that gets contaminated with lead. The purity and clarity of the gold becomes clouded, heavy. Or it’s like a pot in which the water is being roiled by wind. The wind churns the water, it creates waves, and we can’t see our reflection. We can’t see ourselves. But what’s roiling the water? What is the thought that is robbing our rest?. Is it FOMO, are we hungry, anxious, ashamed? That’s what we need to identify.
And how do we do that? With mindfulness, with attention. Because the challenging thing about these hindrances is that they’re self-fulfilling. The more restless we are, the more worried we feel, the more restless or worried we’ll be. The more we stir the water, the faster it turns, the harder it is for it to settle. So what’s the antidote?
Well, first we have to pay attention. We have to pay attention to the water, not the wind . We have to pay attention to the mind, instead of the thoughts fueling our worry or restlessness. We have to pay attention to the pot, which is our body.
It’s like a fellow dharma teacher says: When you go to the movies, what is the thing without which the film couldn’t exist, but which does not in any way affect the story?
Right, the screen! He equates the screen with our buddha nature, but it works, with slight tweaking to call it our body-mind. Without our bodies, without our minds, we couldn’t feel restless or worried, right? But our bodies and minds are also perfectly fine without restlessness and worry. They don’t need to be restless or worried to exist. At the same time, they can hold both, perfectly, just like the pot can hold water, perfectly, and the water, if left to its own devices, will become still.
So, in order to work with restlessness and worry we first notice that they’re present. We notice, “I can’t settle down.” We notice, “I’m worried about what might happen.” And instead of trying to find a reason for these, instead of keeping the thoughts going, we settle in the body, if we’re dealing with restlessness, and we settle in the mind, if we’re dealing with worry. How? Breathing in, I notice I’m breathing in. Breathing out, I notice I’m breathing out. We ask ourselves, what will happen if I sit here another minute? Let’s find out.
(I told you about that yoga teacher I had in college who’d have us hold an asana for two minutes, five, ten with certain postures, and she’d ask as our bodies started to shake—the Pali for restlessness, uddhacca, means “to shake”—“Where does your body begin? Where does it end? Find out.”
Or you imagine yourself like still water, a visualization I’ve used many times. Water has enormous power—and also enormous calm. Or imagine yourself as the pot—solid, holding, spacious. You say to yourself, This restlessness is robbing my calm This worry is robbing my calm. I will note “Restlessness going in.” I will note “Restlessness going out” I will note “Worry going in.” I will note “Worry going out." Like the tide’s ebb and flow. Or you remind yourself, as Shantideva said, “If you can do something about it, why worry? If you can’t do anything about it, why worry?” Respond or let go.
But it’s hard, people say. Of course! Why would we think it’s easy? Nobody said liberation is easy. Liberation is hard—but samsara is harder, exponentially harder. So, we pay attention, we investigate, we be with. But there’s something else. You also have to be infinitely patient and kind to yourself. It’s not enough to pay attention. You also have to be very tender in that attention That’s what Ajahn Brahm was pointing to. It’s not enough to be mindful. We have to be mindful and we have to be kind We also have to be patient, because this takes time. And we don’t always like that.
After years of struggling with our minds, our bad habits, our addictions, we’re lucky enough to encounter the dharma. We begin to practice, maybe we find a teacher, and we think, All right, let’s go! And then we get disappointed when we keep falling on our face. But anything worth doing takes time. And I’d say that not suffering anymore is definitely worth doing, worth pursuing.
Finally, there’s another factor that’s very important when countering restlessness and worry, and that’s joy.(Oh my God, here she goes again with the joy…!) Joy and contentment stand at the opposite end of worry and restlessness. A mind that’s joyful, a mind that’s contented, is a mind that’s peaceful and at ease. It’s a mind that’s able to rest because it doesn’t seek, it doesn’t strive—too much—it doesn’t project or distract itself. It doesn’t need to; it’s happy to just be.
Joy is a practice. I do say this often—because it’s true. Joy is a practice and we do well to take it as such—to practice joy in all seriousness. And if it’s hard to do it on our own, we can do it in the company of others.
All of these hindrances have as an antidote among their various antidotes spiritual friendship. We surround ourselves with noble friends who might encourage, support, inspire us on the path. We alone do this work of countering the hindrances. And we’re also each other’s antidote.
Explore further
01 : The Five Hindrances by the Insight Meditation Center
02 : Practicing with the Five Hindrances- Tricycle Magazine
03 : Obstacles Are Part of the Path by Jack Kornfield