Question

In the Satipattana Sutta, the Buddha said, "And how the hindrances do not arise in the future." For this we use Wise Reflection, right? Anything else?

Answer

Yes, Wise Reflection is very helpful in this particular situation to know how they won't arise in the future, especially concerning the dependent arising nature of Dukkha. This is helping one gain more insight into the wish to become because if we always wish to become, then we're always wanting this body and mind in the future, and from this body and mind there arises Dukkha, the inevitable Dukkha of aging, disease, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. So, the ultimate "how they won't arise in the future" is to get enlightened so that we don't continually cycle in the cycle of Cause and Effect.

Basically, the hindrances not arising in the future depends on wisdom, developing enough wisdom so that the hindrances that are based on the wrong view do not arise again. We have to transform our wrong views because these are the cause of the continual arising of the hindrances. The focus has to go to the root causes of the hindrances arising which is ignorance.

As I said in the Satipattana Sutta talk last night, there are two focuses we can develop: an objective moment-to-moment awareness and lessening ignorance. With the objective moment-to-moment awareness, we cut the reaction to the feeling that is dependent on our conditioning, but that reaction itself is based in our past preconceived ideas and ignorance, so we have to actually work on both focuses, not only cutting the reaction to the feeling, but also working on the ignorance. Wise reflection is extremely important in this aspect, but also continuing to develop objective awareness, so that wise reflection has some experiential understanding of cause and effect to work with. It's difficult to use wise reflection unless we have a direct experience with investigating the hindrances, seeing the results of them in ourselves, and developing the understanding of the Law of Cause and Effect. And it's very difficult to investigate unless we have some objective awareness, because this is the first step in letting go of attaching to the thoughts as me and mine. So they are dependent on each other.

There are eight factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, and Right Mindfulness has to be supported with Right Understanding and Right Intention. We can not just use some of the Eightfold Path, we need all of the Noble Eightfold Path in order to get beyond Dukkha and get beyond the hindrances arising in the future. According to the teachings, the hindrances no longer arise only when one is fully enlightened. And in order to lessen all our suffering we have to walk the Noble Eightfold Path which begins with Right View and according to the teachings it will end with the experiential understanding of the Four Noble Truths. So, the Noble Eightfold Path is not a linear process, it's more of a spiral, and that's one of the reasons we have this circle with eight glass bricks behind us when we teach; it indicates the Noble Eightfold Path. So walking the Noble Eightfold Path is imperative to knowing how the hindrances won't arise in the future and we have to develop all the Eightfold factors.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.