The Nine Resistances in Meditation

You sit down. Close your eyes. And then it begins. Not the silence — but everything else. The inner voice that says: This is pointless. The itch on your knee. The memory of an unanswered email. The vague feeling that you are doing it wrong.

If that sounds familiar, you have not failed. You are right in the middle of the practice. Because meditation is not the absence of resistance — it is the conscious encounter with it. Over more than 25 years of practice and guidance, Mark Hosak has identified nine resistances that come up in meditation again and again. Not as mistakes. Not as signs that something is wrong. As natural forces that belong to the path.

Why resistances are not failure 障

In many depictions of meditation, an image arises that has little to do with reality: instant calm, a clear mind, inner peace from the first breath. Anyone who believes this image and then experiences the opposite considers themselves incapable. That is the greatest mistake.

The Japanese tradition knows the concept of 障 — Shō, obstacle. In Buddhist practice, obstacles are not regarded as enemies but as signposts. Every resistance shows you something about your mind. The question is not how to remove it — but how to meet it.

Mark Hosak describes this process like this: the resistances are like waves on a lake. You cannot demand the lake go still at once. But you can observe how the waves come and go — without being carried away by them. That is the stance. Observe. Accept. Continue.

The nine resistances at a glance 九障

This model comes from Mark's many years of meditation practice and from accompanying thousands of practitioners. It describes what actually happens when a person sits down and looks inward.

• Resistance 1 Altered sense of time Five minutes feel like half an hour. Time stretches, because the mind is not used to being without external stimulus. That is normal — and it changes with practice.
• Resistance 2 Inner voices "Stop." "This is a waste of time." "You could be doing something useful." These voices are not you. They are patterns making themselves heard because, for the first time, you are listening. Let them speak — and stay seated.
• Resistance 3 Time control The urge to keep checking the clock. How much longer? Am I done yet? This impulse shows the mind wanting to keep control. The practice consists of letting it go.
• Resistance 4 Bodily sensations Tingling, itching, pressure, mild pain. The body speaks up because it suddenly receives attention. These sensations are often signs that something is moving — not that something is wrong. Information on the right sitting posture can support you here.
• Resistance 5 Thoughts and emotions Memories rise. Worries appear. Sadness, anger, joy — all at once or in rapid alternation. That is not chaos. That is purification. The mind cleans up when given space.
• Resistance 6 Inner resistance — unworthiness The feeling of not deserving it. Of not being good enough for this practice. Not spiritual enough, not disciplined enough. This resistance is often the deepest — and the most important one to meet.
• Resistance 7 External distractions The phone. The doorbell. Sounds from outside. External distractions are the easiest excuse — and at the same time the easiest to see through. Because the resistance does not lie in the sound, but in the reaction to it.
• Resistance 8 Boredom and impatience Nothing happens. No vision, no light, no experience. Only silence and the feeling of wasting time. Boredom is the guardian at the door. Whoever endures it enters the room beyond.
• Resistance 9 Self-doubt Am I doing it right? Is this method even right for me? Maybe I should try something else. Self-doubt disguises itself as wise reflection — but in truth it is the mind's last defence against change.

The stance: observe, accept, continue 観

There is no technique that dissolves all nine resistances at once. That would not be the point either. The point is the stance with which you meet them. And this stance can be summed up in three words: observe, accept, continue.

Observe means: notice what is happening right now. Without judgement. Without trying to change it. You feel tingling in the leg? Notice it. A voice tells you to stop? Notice it. You are bored? Notice it.

Accept means: what is here is allowed to be here. It is not a sign of weakness. It is not a mistake. Every resistance is part of your experience — and so part of the path.

Continue means: you stay seated. You return to your breath, to your mantra, to your practice. Not by force, but with the same gentleness with which you acknowledged the resistance. Breath techniques like the 108 Breath Meditation can serve as an anchor.

The Shingon tradition has a term for this: 観 — Kan, contemplation. Not the analytical observing of the intellect, but the open, wide seeing that includes everything. This is exactly the quality of seeing that arises in meditation — when one stops fighting the resistances.

Resistances as signposts 道

Anyone who practices regularly will notice something astonishing: the resistances do not disappear — but they change. What at first looked like an insurmountable obstacle becomes, in time, a familiar companion. The inner voice still speaks — but you no longer follow it automatically. Boredom still comes — but you know what lies behind it.

This is not theory. This is the experience Mark Hosak has gathered over more than two decades of practice — inside the temples of Japan, on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, in thousands of hours of silent practice. And it is the experience practitioners in the Shingon Reiki community share again and again.

Each of the nine resistances is an invitation. Not an invitation to stop — but to look more deeply. Into what hides behind the discomfort. Into what shows itself when the mind finally becomes still enough to listen.