Watching 5 hindrances to self-mastery of Master Shi Heng Yi, I am thoroughly connected to it because I am in fact climbing a mountain and I have experienced those all 5 hindrances. Watching it was like taking the roller coaster another time. So what is the mountain that I am climbing? I switched my career, risked a chance of being employed and staying in the U.S, challenged my identity and pressured myself and my family under a debt to pursue coding and with a hope that someday I can build something meaningful to many people. And follows is how have I experienced the 5 hindrances, some I got more, some I got less. I have been through those but I could not define them and now I get a clearer idea that those made me feel that this journey is so hard, hardest I have taken. It’s not easy to write all these down and it won’t be pleasant for you to read either but since I choose to go toward clarity to climb up to the peak, here I accept them and am okay to ‘let it rain’.
- Sensual desire: It’s about positive feelings that generate temptation to us. Master Shi Heng Yi gave an anatomy that we are climbing up a mountain and we see a beautiful restaurant with such great beverages and foods that smell good that we want to stop there until we don’t want to leave anymore. While I am pursuing my path, I have wasted time to emerge myself into watching Youtube videos and series just to forget the pains I have suffered. There were days I watched straight 8 hours, there were weeks I could not wait to watch a TV show every time, there were moments I got obsessed about those things I watched. I watched things that relate to myself, things that main characters have pains like mine, suffered like me and then thrived, I tried to get an answer from them. These things are not clearly bad so that I could be conscious to stay away or stop from watching, I knew that it’s not to spend lots of hours doing so but to men, they were like pain killers. I recognized it and did not accept it and did not try to find a way to stay far from it.
- Ill will/Aversion: Different from sensual desire, this is a state of mind that arrives from negative emotion. To me, this comes from lots of rejections I have got, especially in applying for a day job. I got stuck in finding a way to make money to pay my debt and to sustain myself in this path. Every rejection increases a percentage of doubt and worrisome. Every opportunity raised me up with hope and then a rejection followed seems like bring me down to hell. I have cried a lot, any time I think about my path, just to give it a number, I cried at least 1 a week and there was a week I cried 3 or 4 times. Seeing people around me worry about me, I could not move forward. I locked myself in my room and cried. I cried when I was running, when I was sleeping, when I was studying, when I was thinking. I did not recognize it as a hindrance at all, I emerged myself into my own emotion, let alone everything else. Every day of this feels like being disabled, like I want to walk but I cannot. The more I talked it out, the more it sucks I feel. I am disappointed of not being recognized, I dislike that people just don’t see my potentials, I don’t like being small, I hate being rejected, I even hater the fact that I could not take offers due to my legal status.
- Dullness/Heaviness: In climbing a mountain, it’s heaviness of our body and a lack of energy to move upward. Thanks to my running exercise everyday, I don’t have much of this but I did feel a lack of energy and a lack of motivation sometimes. I missed the liveliness of my youth. I missed how I did try to find a way to do everything I want. I missing experiencing life. I missed the energy of discovery and learning. I missed the excitement of trying out. Every of that moment, I think about what if I go back to have a free path, what if I get out of my current situation like a bird freely flying out, will I be happy in that path, will I stay disciplined enough, will I be able to keep my faith? And then I started worrying and started feeling exhausted, started feeling disabled. Not to mention, I felt lonely in the journey. The loneliness came mostly from the fact that no one can actually understand what I have been through, simply because not many people have done this. It also came from the fact that I cannot be close to my family, cannot physically touch them, hug them. For a long time, I have not often hug someone. I missed being deeply supported, connected, encouraged and empowered, emotionally.
- Restlessness: I was very restless. I have been a monkey for almost 4 months. Every day I have wandered. I tried to figure out my decision, to go left or to go right, to move or to step back, should I stay or should I leave. I have wandered between my past and imagined my future, it drew my attention away from my presence, I did not feel peaceful. I went to beds many nights with questions and woke up with unfinished thoughts. In my job applications, I jumped around different companies, I interviewed with folks in my home country and I talked to people here in the U.S. One day I wanted to stay, the other day I wanted to leave. One day I evaluated an opportunity and tomorrow I rejected the possibility or the beauty of it. I shared my situation to different people and tried to ask for their advices desperately. I even brought it up to strangers. I even came to books to find a similar situation that anyone could have been through like me and hoped to find an answer from them. I was panicking. I felt drown. I checked emails, I checked facebook, I checked twitter, many times in a day, I did so unconsciously. Those were helpless, I realized my situation is to unique. I am climbing a very high mountain, under a very unpleasant weather, on a tough road, only me.
- Sceptical doubt: This was the most I suffered from. My family doubt me, my relatives doubt me, my friends doubt me, I doubt myself. Many times, I asked myself what I am doing with my life, is it worth it or will it be? Many times, I audited myself in the past, judged my own decisions and even regretted some times. Many times, I look at people I used to know and thought why they are so happy. A lot of time, I could not speak myself that I had to rather let people think myself in a way I do not agree with. First year in my life that I ever worried about whether I can make it and what if I cannot. I questioned my identity. When in doubt, I am again deeply engaged in my own emotions, distracted from my work and from doing my work. At that moments, I started to overthink and I lost my track.
It was scary, it was exhausted and it was painful but now I recognized and I accepted. What’s more important is that I will try to always find a way to not step in or to get out of any of those 5 hindrances to see my path toward my mountain clearly. Right now, every day waking up, I learn to feel bless of having one more day to love, to contribute, to experience and to live meaningfully. And by that I mean, I will love, will contribute, will experience and will live meaningfully. Because that’s the only way I can persist till the day I climb up to the peak of my mountain!
Peace with you.
