Traditionally, books on meditation spend a lot of time discussing the possible hindrances to meditation. I will not. The hindrances are an important topic, but they can easily begin to seem more ominous than they really are. Hindrances are just anything of which we were not mindful and of which we did not investigate the truth. Now that we know to be mindful and investigate the Three Characteristics of all moment-to-moment experiences, there will only be hindrances when we forget to do this.
If we do not forget to do this, there will be no hindrances. No phenomena are inherently a hindrance unless we do not understand them. If we did not understand at least one of the Three Characteristics of each of the sensations that make up a phenomenon, no matter what it was, it was a hindrance. Remember that the content of reality is not our concern in insight meditation, but the ultimate truth of the sensations that make up experiential reality is. So whatever seems to be in the way of your practice, remember that the experience of that 41
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment
moment is the practice and contains all the truth you could ever need!
All phenomena are of the nature of ultimate truth. When we know deeply that these are all of the nature of ultimate truth, phenomena cease to be a fundamental problem.
The Buddha was a master of teaching through analogies that were easily accessible to those listening to him. I am certainly not in his league in this regard, and this will be clearly demonstrated by the analogy I am about to use for investigation. However, it has its points, and so after much consideration, I have included it here.
The Buddha gave his analogies names, and I have named this one
“The Analogy of Shootin’ Aliens.” Bear with me here! Just about all of us in this day and age have at least seen if not played video games involving shooting aliens. As the game goes on, the aliens come in faster and faster, some taking multiple hits to kill them. Some of these games penalize us for wasting ammunition, causing us to really focus on exactly where and when these aliens are arising, so that we may shoot them exactly when they arise as efficiently as possible before they shoot us.
A few of you may already be thinking, “Get that bloody and violent analogy out of this book of holy wisdom!” The Buddha used many similar analogies, one of which comes to mind is has to do with a horse trainer (teacher) who kills horses that simply will not be broken (stops teaching unreachable students). Thus, you pansy critics can all drop dead.
