{"id":2502,"date":"2012-07-12T10:07:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T14:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=2502"},"modified":"2012-07-12T10:08:50","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T14:08:50","slug":"obstacles-to-practice-the-five-hindrances-restlessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2012\/07\/obstacles-to-practice-the-five-hindrances-restlessness.html","title":{"rendered":"Obstacles to Practice: The Five Hindrances: Restlessness and Worry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is the penultimate installment of the final set of reflections on\u00a0obstacles to practice<\/a>\u00a0focusing on the Buddha’s five hindrances (well not his hindrances, but the five that he set out as obstacles to meditation). The Five are a laundry list of things that are rarely a good idea–sensual desire anger, anxiety, laziness, restlessness, and doubt.\u00a0We’ll look at these one by one.<\/p>\n

Restlessness is a pandemic. As a culture we cannot sit still for more than 140 characters (however long that takes). We need quick fixes, instant gratification, and like sharks we feel we need to keep moving in order to stay alive (sharks actually do, we don’t).<\/p>\n

Restlessness is a cousin to worry. Something is not quite right in this moment and if I get up and change my perspective perhaps that will change the offness of the moment. This doesn’t work because the restlessness follows you to the next moment–it’s built into the very way we look at things.<\/p>\n

Mindfulness practice seeks to rest perception in this moment–to accept the offness–without desperately trying to fix it. Mindfulness gives us permission not to have to change it and this relieves a lot of pressure. We can just notice the restlessness and the worry and return attention to now.<\/p>\n

What does restlessness actually feel like? Where do you feel it in your body? How is it moving? What types of sensations are present? Investigate these sensations with interest. Restlessness is a concept, after all, and we can come to know its energy. This knowing will help us to sit with it with a relative stillness. We don’t have to move all the time.<\/p>\n

Likewise, we can learn to sit with the mind’s tendency to worry and to move from its resting spot in the present moment to imagined futures. What does worry feel like in the body? In other words, what are the emotional signatures of worry as they register in the body? We can investigate worry as energy, just as restlessness.<\/p>\n

When we turn towards the energy of restlessness and worry they can be present without becoming obstacles to practice. They don’t have to be a hindrance. Everything that is present can forward practice when we turn towards it with interest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the penultimate installment of the final set of reflections on\u00a0obstacles to practice\u00a0focusing on the Buddha’s five hindrances (well not his hindrances, but the five that he set out as obstacles to meditation). The Five are a laundry list of things that are rarely a good idea–sensual desire anger, anxiety, laziness, restlessness, and doubt.\u00a0We’ll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9,19],"tags":[39,410,509,510,82],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddha-101","category-mindfulnesss","category-stress-reduction","tag-buddha","tag-five-hindrances","tag-obstacles-to-meditation-practice","tag-restlessness","tag-worry"],"yoast_head":"\nObstacles to Practice: The Five Hindrances: Restlessness and Worry - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2012\/07\/obstacles-to-practice-the-five-hindrances-restlessness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obstacles to Practice: The Five Hindrances: Restlessness and Worry - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the penultimate installment of the final set of reflections on\u00a0obstacles to practice\u00a0focusing on the Buddha’s five hindrances (well not his hindrances, but the five that he set out as obstacles to meditation). 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2502"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2510,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions\/2510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}