The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So hello and welcome to this third talk on the hindrances. The hindrances are five kind of

of strategies that our inner life has to respond to challenges in unhelpful ways.

And maybe in some ways life is always

has some challenges. And so how we respond to them is part of the nature of

this practice of ours and I think it's important not to think of mindfulness

practice about right kind of floating on a cloud of bliss and joy and

just being just peaceful and have, you know, and happy ever after. A more valuable way of understanding mindfulness

practice is that we are actually learning how to be present in an effective way in a wholesome way with the challenges that life brings that

they always bring and so one of the ways to do that is to understand the unhelpful ways in which we respond to challenges.

And the five hindrances are such things.

So sometimes we respond with uncertainty and confusion and running around not being able

to make decisions. Sometimes we respond with agitation, restlessness, maybe with regrets and remorse about who we are, what's happening, how we're showing up, what happened in the past.

Sometimes we are, which is the topic for today, is that somehow we freeze up, we shut down, we go to sleep in some

way, so we're not having to deal with the challenges that come.

And then for the next two days, next day is sometimes we respond with hostility,

with aversion, ill will, with blame, with complaining, with hostility.

And then finally, on Friday,

we respond with desires of different types,

essential desires, avaricious desires,

desires of greed.

We want something to fill us,

...