Let's get to know Christina, Christoph, and Yuka, and find out why they view the five hindrances as such an important teaching.

Meet the Teachers

Christina Feldman

I, like most people on this path, have encountered challenges and times of bleakness and times when I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. And yet, in looking at my own mind and speaking to others, I can appreciate the universality of many of these challenges. One strand of challenges that we all encounter is how to meet and not be overwhelmed by these core patterns that are referred to as the five hindrances. In doing so, we begin to know that the hindrances truly don't need to govern our lives. They don't need to shape our minds and our perceptions. We can discover freedom from the hindrances.

Christoph Köck

When we aspire towards peace and happiness, we need to look at what separates us from peace and happiness. Sometimes it gets overlooked that this is actually quite nourishing. It enriches our practice. It's about finding joy in working with the difficulties that inevitably arise in everybody's life and in everybody's practice.

Yuka Nakamura

Over the years, I have seen again and again how helpful these teachings on the hindrances are to practitioners. Many people find it a relief to hear that these patterns, these states, are something that everybody experiences. Our aim is to normalize them and not take them so personally. That's why I'm really happy that we have this opportunity to talk about the hindrances in this course.