Ok, last week’s talk and the post that accompanied it got a lot of response. Almost all the responses were variations of pushback on the idea that we should be active, even fierce, in working to diminish our hindrances. Why is this very traditional idea controversial? I have ideas, but admit that I was a bit surprised.

It’s always interesting when this happens. I don’t think that one or another position on how we should practice is categorically right or wrong—Dharma doors are numberless. But how we respond to traditional instructions is revealing about where we are as individuals and communities of practice, and about how the Dharma is evolving as it meets new people in new situations.

Tonight we’ll talk about a core dialectic (two things that create friction) around unskillful states like the hindrances: path and destination. Are path and destination the same, meaning that how we practice should look like [what we think] the goal of practice [looks/feels like]? For example, if we are practicing toward a state of effortlessness we think must be the experience of post-awakening, should we cultivate effortlessness in our pre-awakening practices?

(You know I’m going to say no.) No.

First, it’s impossible to know a state before you experience it, so any ideas we have about post-awakening are projection and fantasy until awakening happens. I dream about being awake all the time, but even when the dream is lucid, it’s still a dream. Being awake is really quite different from even the most realistic dream. And the difference between being awake and dreaming matters.

The path and the destination are not the same. Path by definition means I’m working on something, going somewhere, making effort. Destination is both where I think I’m heading (which is projection and fantasy, but hopefully skillful and grounded in wise guidance and lineage), and where I actually get to post-awakening. (And yes, there’s lot of territory post-awakening, and it’s not one thing, or one place, or all-or-nothing, or the same for everybody or every culture.)

For the hindrances, a core theological problem this brings up is whether they are obstacles to eliminate from our system or inevitable realities to cultivate equanimity around. I think the Dhamma is clear here: hindrances are obstacles that can and should be removed. It’s the external realities of aging, sickness, death, gain/loss, pleasure/pain, etc. that can’t be removed, making equanimity and letting go the path to freedom from suffering around these.

If this is a helpful reflection, then it should support us to disentangle ideas about how we should practice—how much effort and what kinds—from teachings about our true nature or the meaning of painful states like hindrances.