Sit for long enough and something gets in the way. Yoga and Buddhism each kept a list of what. Patanjali names nine obstacles, the Buddhist tradition five hindrances, and the two lists overlap without matching. This page walks each list a row at a time, then sets them side by side.
The nine obstacles
Road barrier: antaraya, the word for these nine, is literally what comes in between.
Patanjali names nine obstaclesantarayasअन्तराय, the ways a mind gets scattered, and Vyasa, the classical commentator, says what each one is. They come with the mind's fluctuations and leave with them, so whatever stills the mind clears them too. Patanjali also names their company: pain, low spirits, a body that will not be still, a breath that runs ragged on its own. Notice one of those in a sitting and an obstacle is close. The nine, one at a time:
- Sickness. A cold, a bad back, a fever: the body too unwell to be forgotten, so the sit becomes about the body. Its kin among the five aggregates is sensation (Vedana): the body's unpleasant feel, turned up until nothing else is heard.
- Inertia. The mind will not get going. Nothing hurts; nothing moves either.
- In two minds. This might work; it might not. The mind keeps both doors open and walks through neither.
- Heedlessness. Sitting without having thought about how: no method, or the one you had let slip. Its near opposite is steady practice (Abhyasa). The Dhammapada pairs the heedful with the wide-awake and the heedless with the sleepy.
- Heaviness. No effort comes, because body or mind is too heavy to make it. You sit, and you sink.
- Worldliness. A mind that lives on its senses and wants the next pleasant thing more than it wants to sit. Its cousin among the five afflictions is attachment (Raga); its answer is non-attachment (Vairagya), steady practice's partner.
- Seeing wrongly. Taking what is not so for what is: a pleasant drift mistaken for depth. The same movement as misconception (Viparyaya) among the five kinds of thought, met here as an obstacle; not-seeing (Avidya), the first affliction, is its cousin.
- Not getting there. The object is chosen but no stage of absorption is reached; the sit stays on the surface. Picture the fourth noble truth's map, the path (Magga): the route is drawn and the walk stops short.
- Not staying there. Absorption reached, then lost; the mind arrives and slips. Its cousin among the five hindrances is restlessness: the mind lands and will not stay landed.
The remedy
Patanjali's remedy follows the list and its company, and it is short. First, practice on a single thing: the one-pointedness (Ekagrata) that concentration trains. Then a change of heart rather than of technique: friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward those in pain, gladness at those who do good, and an even mind toward those who do not. They are the same four the Buddhist tradition grows as the divine abodes (Brahmaviharas), here each matched to its occasion. After that comes a generous "or": the breath, a steadying sensation, a bright and untroubled state, the mind of someone free of wanting, what dream and sleep show, or any object you like. He is not fussy about the door.
The five hindrances
Bowl of water: the Buddha's picture for all five. Spoiled any of five ways, it no longer shows your face.
The Buddhist tradition keeps a shorter list, the five hindrances, worth seeing one at a time, because each shows up differently in a sitting:
- Sensory desire — a hook. The pull toward something pleasant, the mind leaning out of its seat toward a want.
- Ill will — a thorn. Aversion, irritation, the quiet "no" to what is here.
- Sloth and torpor — a sinking stone. Dullness and heaviness, low energy, boredom; the practice gone slack.
- Restlessness and worry — a bouncy ball. The opposite: a mind that will not settle, jumpy, running ahead.
- Doubt — a crossroads. This isn't working, I'm doing it wrong; the loss of confidence that quietly ends a sit.
Grouped simply: two of energy (sloth sinks, restlessness will not land), two of appetite (desire pulls you in, ill will pushes you away), and doubt, which stops you where you stand. They are not enemies: they are the curriculum, the terrain the practice crosses rather than walls blocking the road. Each one, met honestly, is the practice deepening.
Side by side
Set the two lists side by side and they overlap without matching. Doubt is on both: Vyasa's this might be so; might not be so is the same crossroads. Inertia and heaviness between them cover sloth and torpor, the mind that will not start and the weight that will not lift. Worldliness is the hook's cousin: the same pull, which Vyasa calls an addiction to the senses. Beyond that the lists part: sickness, heedlessness, seeing wrongly and not getting there are Patanjali's alone, and ill will is the Buddhist list's alone. Restlessness sits between them: not one of the nine, though not staying there is its cousin; Patanjali calls all nine scatterings, and a body that will not be still keeps them company. Neither is the other in different clothes.
What to do when one of them arrives mid-sit is taught in how to meditate: sit with it, and return.