How to overcome sensual desires, temper, etc?

 This is the Buddha's way for overcoming defilements or hindrances. It is not overcome by superficially sidestepping such emotions. These defilements are actually still inside you. They just have not arisen. The method is part of the Satipatthana meditation (i.e. four foundations of mindfulness), under Dhammanupassana. 

The way to do it is to first practice the Body contemplation (kayanupassana) until you have gained some level of concentration. Without concentration, you will not be able to catch any arising emotions on time. You will be acting at the spur of the moment, for example, getting angry suddenly when someone says something you don't like. So, there must be some level of concentration first. You must be able to note every arising consciousness that hits any of your six senses. Watch the arising and passing away of each consciousness and emotion. Then you can practice Feeling contemplation (vedananupassana). Watch the impact of every consciousness on how you feel. Good, bad or neutral. Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Once you have gained some skill in both of these contemplations, you can go to Mind contemplation (cittanupassana) and finally Mental Objects contemplation (Dhammanupassana). It is the fourth contemplation that I want to detail here. 

Sometimes it is referred to as Mind-object contemplation and consists of the 5 forms of clinging (form, feeling, perception, mental formation and consciousness groups), the 6 sense bases (eye, ear, etc), the 7 factors of enlightenment, and 4 Noble Truths. The contemplations of mind-objects consists of 5 groups:

- the obstacles/hindrances

- group of clinging

- the sense-bases

- the factors of enlightenment

- the Four Noble Truths

There are 5 hindrances : sensous desires, ill-will (or anger/hatred), sloth & torpor, restlessness & scruples, sceptical doubt. Whenever these hindrances are present, you are to contemplation using the 5 methods below (for most people, we usually start with the first two):-

- if the hindrance is present within, we must be aware that it is present within us

- if it is not present within, we must be aware that it is not present within us. 

- if the hindrance that was not present earlier, but occurs now, we must become aware that it is present now. 

- if the hindrance that was present has not disappeared, we become aware that the hindrance has now disappeared.

- if the hindrance that has disappeared, does not occur again in our mind, we become aware and acknowledge that. In this step, we constantly watch over our mind that the defilements/ hindrances does not occur again. 

Therefore, meditation is necessary to uproot all defilements. 

If you like this post, please read earlier posts, such as this one - https://buddha-and-me.blogspot.com/2022/01/maha-satipatthana-sutta-part-1.html

#dhammanupassana #satipatthana #mindfulness