The Hindrances Are Not a Detour — They Are the Path

This is part 1 of a 6-part series on the hindrances.

The five hindrances that cloud mental clarity are classically illustrated using the simile of a container of water. When free of these hindrances, the mind is like clear, still water.

If you've taught mindfulness for any length of time, you've probably had moments when you think, 'Well… this isn't the calm, insightful space I was hoping for.' The room feels restless. People are distracted. Someone looks irritated. Someone else looks bored. And if you're honest, you might be feeling some version of that too.

This is usually the moment when teachers start to feel pressure. We wonder whether we should adjust our approach, speak more or less, rescue the group from discomfort, or somehow steer things back toward something that resembles "mindfulness." But what if nothing has gone wrong? What if the hindrances showing up in the room are not a sign of failure, but a sign that the practice has actually arrived?

The Hindrances as Practice, Not Problems

We don't learn about the hindrances so that we can diagnose ourselves or our students. We learn about them because they are reliable patterns of mind that arise when conditions are right. Desire, aversion, restlessness, sloth, and doubt aren't personal flaws. They're what happens when human nervous systems meet pressure, uncertainty, fatigue, longing, or fear.

And teaching mindfulness creates all of those conditions, even when the room is quiet.

Students often come in thinking mindfulness means getting rid of these states. They want to stop wanting, stop resisting, stop thinking, stop feeling off. When they notice desire, irritation, or dullness, they assume they're doing it wrong. Part of our work as teachers is to undo that misunderstanding gently—not by explaining it away, but by staying present with what's actually happening.

Meeting What's Here

The traditional Buddhist teaching identifies five hindrances: desire (wanting), aversion (pushing away), restlessness, sloth and torpor (dullness), and doubt. Each one represents a different way the mind moves away from present-moment experience. Each one can show up in us as teachers, in our students, and in the dynamic of the group itself.

What's worth remembering, again and again, is that the hindrances don't sit outside the practice waiting to be eliminated. They are the material of practice. When we treat them that way, teaching mindfulness becomes less about producing certain states and more about cultivating relationships—relationships to mind, to body, to conditions, and to each other.

And that's something students can feel. Not because we say it, but because we live it in the room with them.

The hindrances obscure or disturb the clear, peaceful nature of the mind like dye, wind, moss, dirt, and boiling heat disturb clean, placid water.

What's Coming in This Series

Over the following five articles, we'll explore each hindrance in depth—not as theory, but as lived experience in the teaching space. We'll examine how they present themselves, what they expect from us as teachers, and how we can work with them skillfully without trying to fix or eliminate them.

Part 2: Desire - The subtle wanting that runs through teaching and practice, and what happens when we can relate to it rather than be driven by it. The same is true for desire. You can sense passion in the room when students lean forward, internally wanting something to happen, wanting peace, insight, and a better sense of well-being than they currently experience. You can also feel it in yourself as a teacher — wanting the session to be effective, wanting people to feel supported, and wanting to be effective. None of this makes anyone bad at mindfulness. It makes us human.

What tends to create suffering is not desire itself, but the way we tighten around it. When our students or we are caught in wanting, the practice subtly becomes about achieving an experience rather than relating to experience. As teachers, we don’t have to call this out explicitly every time. Often, it’s enough to bring curiosity back to the wanting itself. What does wanting feel like in the body? What happens when it’s noticed rather than obeyed?

Part 3: Aversion - Recognizing resistance, irritation, and pushing away—in ourselves, our students, and the room. Aversion can be trickier, especially in group settings. Students don’t always name it directly. It manifests as irritability, withdrawal, sarcasm, or emotional distancing. Sometimes it’s directed at the practice. Sometimes, at another participant. Sometimes, the teacher. And yes, sometimes we feel it too—a tightening when someone talks too long. A wave of resistance occurs when the group feels flat. A quiet hope that a particular person won’t speak again.

Aversion doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong. It means something feels unpleasant or threatening to the system. When we can recognize aversion without judging it, we’re less likely to act it out. We don’t need to shame ourselves for it or pretend it isn’t there. We just need to see it clearly enough that it doesn’t subtly influence our tone, pacing, or responsiveness.

Part 4: Restlessness - Working with the jumpy, impatient energy that wants to move away from what's here. When a student is restless, for example, the temptation is to calm them down. We might slow the pace, encourage longer exhales, or offer reassuring words to help them feel more at ease. Sometimes that’s helpful. But often the deeper move is to help them notice restlessness as restlessness. To feel it in the body. To recognize its rhythm, its energy, its urge to move away from what’s here. When restlessness is clearly visible, it often resolves on its own — not because we fixed it, but because it was finally allowed.

Part 5: Sloth and Torpor - Meeting dullness, fog, and disconnection without judgment or urgency. Sloth and torpor often get framed as opposite ends of the energy spectrum, but both are signs that something is out of balance. Students experiencing sloth may feel foggy, disconnected, or unmotivated. They often assume they’re failing at mindfulness. Restless students may feel jumpy, impatient, or unable to settle, and they usually blame themselves for having “a busy mind.” Our role isn’t to push them toward some ideal middle ground. It’s to help them recognize these states as temporary conditions, rather than permanent identities.

Part 6: Doubt - Distinguishing between the doubt that shuts down and the doubt that opens us to genuine inquiry. And then there’s doubt. Doubt about the practice. Doubt about whether mindfulness helps. Doubt about whether they’re capable of doing this at all. Teachers experience this too, though we don’t always admit it. Doubt can make students disengage or challenge the framing. It can make teachers over-explain, cling to authority, or second-guess their own embodied understanding. Not all doubt is unhelpful. Some doubt is actually intelligence trying to orient. The work is helping students — and ourselves — distinguish between curiosity and the kind of doubt that stifles progress. When doubt is met with openness rather than defensiveness, it often relaxes. People don’t need certainty. They need honesty and permission not to have everything figured out.

Each hindrance article that follows will go into more focused attention. For now, the invitation is simply this: the next time you sense something "off" in your teaching space—some restlessness, resistance, flatness, or uncertainty—consider the possibility that nothing has gone wrong. The practice may have just arrived.

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This is part 1 of a 6-part series on the hindrances. Subsequent articles will be published on Fridays, so check back next week to read a deep dive on Desire.

If you are interested in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of meditation, mindfulness, and how to share these practices with others, consider our Mindfulness Teacher Training (MTT).