The Five Hindrances
The five hindrances and their canonical antidotes
The canon names five clouds over the mind and assigns each a specific counter move. Here are both lists on one table, with the references to check them against.
The five hindrances are the canon’s weather report for the mind: sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. They appear by name in the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10), where the instruction is clinical rather than dramatic: know when a hindrance is present, know when it has gone, know how it arises, know how it is abandoned, know how it will not arise again. That five part sentence is the whole working method, and the rest of the canon supplies the parts it promises: AN 5.51 shows the hindrances dimming insight the way adulterated gold dims a smith’s work, SN 46.51 lists what feeds each one and what starves it, and SN 46.55 assigns each a counter practice in a single compact discourse.
The five, named and felt
Definitions belong to lives, not lexicons, so each hindrance is given here with its ordinary evening face. Sense desire (kamacchanda) is the mind leaning toward something it wants: the plan, the meal, the memory that replays well. Ill will (byapada) is the mind leaning against: the colleague, the comment, the rehearsed reply. Sloth and torpor (thinamiddha) is the blanket, the heaviness that makes attention fog and posture slump. Restlessness and remorse (uddhacca-kukkucca) is the fan on high, the body wanting to move and the conscience replaying the day. Doubt (vicikiccha) is the fog that asks whether any of this works, usually at its thickest when the other four have already made the sitting unpleasant.
| Hindrance | How it feels on the cushion | Canonical counter move | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sense desire | leaning, tasting, rehearsing what is wanted | attend to the unattractive: what the wanted thing looks like with the gloss off | SN 46.55 |
| Ill will | bracing, arguing, winning imaginary disputes | release the mind into loving kindness, and the boundless abidings that follow it | SN 46.55 |
| Sloth and torpor | fog, drooping, the long blink | arouse energy: the perception of light, posture, walking | SN 46.55, AN 7.58 |
| Restlessness and remorse | spring loaded body, replayed regrets | calm the mind: settle attention low, lengthen the out breath, let the tranquility factor work | SN 46.55 |
| Doubt | shrugging fog, is this even the right method | investigate against the teaching: put the question where the factors can answer it | SN 46.55, MN 20 |
Two complementary passages belong beside the table. MN 20, the discourse on removing distracting thoughts, gives a graded sequence for a thought that will not leave: replace it with a skillful thought, examine its danger, forget it, work the formation backward, and finally press the tongue against the palate and restrain, a row of paddles ordered from gentle to firm. And SN 46.51 explains the economics: each hindrance has a food that grows it, frequent unwise attention of a particular flavor, and a starvation diet, which is why the satipatthana instruction ends with knowing how a hindrance does not arise again.
Reading the weather honestly
The method that holds all five together is the satipatthana sentence quoted at the start, and it rewards being practiced literally. At the start of a sitting, name the weather in one word: wanting, leaning, fog, fan, or fog of the second kind. Naming is not judging; it is the first half of the instruction, presence and absence, and lay sitters who keep a one word record in the Dhamma notebook discover within a month that their hindrances keep office hours, which makes them forecastable, which makes them workable. The heavy after work fog in particular has its own guide in sloth and drowsiness on the evening sit.
A checklist for one month of practice
Choose the costliest hindrance, not the favorite
- Pick the single hindrance that costs the most sittings this month, and write it on the notebook page.
- Copy its row of the table onto the facing page, with the reference.
- Each sitting: name it present or absent in one word, then apply only its counter move.
- Once a week, reread the SN 46.51 passage and mark what you have been feeding it.
- At month’s end, review the notebook column before choosing the next month’s hindrance.
Common mistakes
The first mistake is war: treating hindrances as enemies to crush, when the sutta’s verbs are to know, to abandon, to prevent, and the image of AN 5.51 is not combat but counterfeit, something seen through and set aside. The second is moralizing, reading sense desire and ill will as sins rather than weather, which adds a sixth hindrance, shame, without removing any of the five. The third is scoreboard keeping, treating an absence of hindrances as achievement, when presence is simply information about what to practice. The fourth is antidote hopping, applying metta to fog and light to anger because the table was skimmed; the assignments are specific because the energies are specific. The fifth is forgetting that hindrances are the universal lay curriculum: the calmest sitter you know has sat inside all five, which is why the retreat guides on this site, from how a temple retreat works onward, keep returning to this table.
If you take one thing from the table
Take the pairing and keep it exact: one hindrance, one assigned move, one month, one notebook column. The five part sentence from MN 10 is the container, SN 46.55 is the contents, and the notes are the evidence. Decide tonight which hindrance costs most, and let the sitting that meets it tomorrow morning be the first data point. A practice that can name its weather is already a practice with a roof.