When The Heart Is Overcome
Do we actually have a good side and a bad one?
Recently, someone asked a question during a discussion I was in. They wanted to know: if human beings have a light side and a dark side, what happens to the dark side when we practice Buddhism? Does it disappear when awakening is attained? Is it a fight to the finish, or does it gradually fade away? Is it an essential part of our makeup, or something that must ultimately be transformed?
My first thought was that it is not a given that there is a constant mixture of dark and light within us, as if some evil self is in permanent confrontation with a good self. It is more that delusion manifests as unskillful, harmful actions, words, and thoughts. In any given moment, we express whatever has overcome the heart. In Zen vernacular, we express either delusion or enlightenment.
I want to spend some time with this notion of the heart being overcome by something. To provide context for this, there is a passage in a sutra where a brahmin approaches the Buddha to ask a question. He wants to know why it is that sometimes even the most rehearsed hymns do not come to mind, while at other times even long-unrehearsed ones suddenly do. The Buddha explains that there are times when the heart is overcome by certain hindrances, and in those moments one loses the clarity needed to see what is good for oneself, for others, and for both.
When the sutras speak of the heart, the term refers to what we would call mind.
The list of hindrances mentioned is standard in Buddhist teachings: sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. These are not fixed categories. They appear in different forms, shaped by conditions, and they move with the mind itself.
What I find most interesting in these words of the Buddha is the part where he explains that being overcome, afflicted by these negative qualities, makes one blind to what is good for oneself, good for others, and good for both. The hindrances are usually discussed in relation to meditation practice, but they operate just as clearly in ordinary life.
Not knowing what is good for oneself leads directly to poor choices. To follow the loud, overpowering voice of lust destroys relationships and breaks families. To fall into dullness and drowsiness, into a flat and unresponsive mind, leads to mistakes, accidents, and harm in everyday situations like work or driving.
It is not that we are always sensually enticed, dull, or filled with ill will. These states arise because they are fueled and sustained in each moment. They are sustained by lack of awareness and lack of restraint.
To give unwise attention to certain mental objects does nothing but nourish the seeds of these unwholesome qualities.
Seeing something beautiful and finding it desirable can quickly turn into greed, lust, or selfishness if we do not mindfully pay attention to the craving or grasping that arises and apply restraint. Staying with a thought of disliking something or someone can easily grow into a burning fire of aversion, hatred, and ill will.
No one is unfamiliar with this. Disliking someone and repeatedly attending to their faults, gossiping about them, reinforcing the story of their flaws—this is how ill will is sustained. The more the mind is occupied with that dislike, the more ill will grows.
For whatever reason, my street has become much busier lately, so much so that parking is now an issue even for those who live here. A few days ago, I heard a neighbor speaking about this problem with someone down the street. She was complaining about not being able to park in front of her house and about how inconsiderate people were.
I looked at her car, which was parked below my window. It was positioned awkwardly between two parking spaces. As she approached the building, I asked her, “Why did you leave your car like that? If it stays there, someone else cannot use the remaining space.”
Her answer was simple: they deserved it. She can never park there, so now—screw them.
When the heart is overcome by ill will, one cannot see what is good for others.
“Why not leave an available parking space? Your car already has one.”
One also becomes blind to what is good for oneself.
“What makes you think the neighbor who sees your car parked like that will not do the same to you in return?”
This is how blindness arises toward what is good for both oneself and others.
That encounter has stayed with me, mostly because of how unskillful the action was.
But that’s often what we do, isn’t it? We get carried away by knee-jerk reactions, by the hindrances we have fueled and unskillfully allowed to run unchecked.
In another sutra, the Buddha explains that unwise attention fuels both lack of mindfulness and lack of restraint. Practice is the cultivation of wise attention. And the way one attends wisely is by cultivating those qualities that can overcome the heart and lead to wholesome forms of behavior.
Every illness has a cure, and every poison an antidote. When craving arises, we can cultivate contentment. When anger arises, we can cultivate patience. When ill will takes over, we can develop loving-kindness.
Situational awareness allows us to notice the seeds that have been planted, while wise attention helps us understand the field before us. We learn to recognize which plants should be cultivated and which are weeds. We learn which weeds need pulling, which can be left alone, and even when a healthy plant may need trimming so that it does not ultimately damage itself.
This is not an activity reserved for the future. It is for here and now. If there were truly two solid sides within us, one good and one bad, then perhaps the goal would be to eliminate one and preserve the other. But Zen does not move in that direction.
Instead of pursuing some distant moment of absolute perfection, the Zen approach is to engage with reality moment by moment, with wisdom. We express awakening one moment at a time. We understand that something arises when certain conditions are present, and moment by moment we do our best to create conditions for good actions. Ignorance is fertile ground for craving and attachment, and from these come harmful actions. However, when the conditions change, something else arises.
This is why we sit in meditation with everything exposed. Hindrances, clarity, skillful mind, unskillful mind, the entire field of experience—nothing is excluded.
Simple observation—free from judgment, negotiation, manipulation, and control—reveals the arising and passing of these countless fragments of experience: sensations, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and feelings. In doing so, we learn to abide with a heart that is not overcome by them.
What is the result of that? The Buddha answers himself: at that time, we truly know and see what is good for ourselves, good for another, and good for both.