Any difficulties with teachings or practice?

[Aloka]

Dear friends, please share if there are any Buddhist teachings that you've found difficult to understand or practice.

[philg]

Meditation was always a difficult practice for when I first started to attend the Buddhist centre. I had been meditating for a number of years, but this was the first time I had meditated with anybody, let alone 40+ people in the shrine room, and found the discipline to keep quiet and not move and not cough or anything rather unsettling. It took me a couple of years before I was really 'into' such shared meditations, although eventually I was looked at as rather strange for going to the longer 'sits' where we undertook double meditations with just a five minute gap.

Another problem was how to deal with things like Pujas and singing mantras, getting to the right mindset where I knew the difference between worship and the sort of practice where you are offering your respects to others, where you are reminding yourself of the path and where you are simply enjoying being with others who are on the same journey. I must admit to keeping my eye on the shrine room door at first in case they locked us in (you do hear stories of strange groups), but when I realised they were a pretty good bunch of people I was able to relax, even when some would prostrate themselves during the Pujas.

[McKmike]

Hi

The three poisons sensual desire, aversion and delusion

The first two sensual desire and aversion are relatively straight forward to understand, however delusion, that is not so straightforward

How do people understand this poison

[BlueFaky]

Hi.

The most difficult thing for me is to make sure I am not wrapping myself under a 'sophisticated autosuggestive' illusion that I am less sensible to pain and that I am a better person than I was 20 years ago.

It is possible I am a horrible person hiding behing a Buddhist costume.

[Thinker]

Nothing wrong with the teachings, but a lifetime of conditioning makes it tough on seeing through the web, still glad I found this, it is always here.