by Dalai Lama
All Buddhist tenet systems agree that these five views are afflictive in that they disturb the mind; view of a personal identity and view of the extremes are ethically neutral, but the remaining three are nonvirtuous. The tenet systems also agree that all five afflictive views are rooted in ignorance and have an element of not knowing the object. Prāsaṅgikas take it a step further and say that all afflictive views are forms of ignorance.
According to the Treasury of Knowledge, wrong views are a kind of corrupt intelligence. According to the Compendium of Knowledge, they are called corrupt intelligence but are not actually intelligence because intelligence must necessarily be virtuous and afflictive views are nonvirtuous. However, both texts agree that the mental factor of wrong views and the mental factor of ignorance do not have a common locus. According to the Compendium of Knowledge, the path of action of wrong views (the tenth nonvirtue) is the mental factor of wrong views and is not ignorance. Asaṅga says this because wrong views are corrupt intelligence, and ignorance, being obscuration and unknowing, is not.
REFLECTION
1. Make examples from your own experience of times each of the five afflictive views have manifested in your mind.
2. Are these views easier or more difficult to notice than the first five afflictions?
3. What effect do afflictive views have on your Dharma practice?
4. What will help you to subdue them?
More Types of Defilements
To broaden our perspective on true origins, we will now look at other ways the sūtras and Abhidharma texts of both the Pāli and Sanskrit traditions describe the afflictive mental factors that propel saṃsāra.
There are many classification systems, each one looking at the defilements from a slightly different perspective that emphasizes particular points. The auxiliary afflictions emphasize the relationship of secondary afflictions and root afflictions. Abandonment or reduction in the ten fetters delineate attainment of the stages of stream-enterer (srotāpanna), once-returner (sakṛdāgāmin), nonreturner (anāgāmi), and arhat. The pollutants are discussed in the context of their being the basic mental contaminants that keep sentient beings revolving in cyclic existence because they are so well-entrenched in the mind.
Sometimes the description of a defilement varies from one text or tradition to another. This gives us more information about that defilement and its functions, making it easier for us to identify it when it arises in our minds.
What follows are not simply lists of defilements but mirrors to our minds that help us to identify the various attitudes, emotions, and views that disturb our minds. These defilements cause us to experience unhappiness here and now and instigate the creation of destructive karma that brings unpleasant results in future lives. As you read the descriptions of the various defilements, pause after each one and make an example of it in your own experience. This will bring these lists alive for you and reveal them as an excellent tool for identifying factors that hinder your happiness and the fulfillment of your spiritual aims.
Afflictions
In the Pāli sūtras the afflictions (P. kilesa) are mentioned often but are not itemized. Their enumeration is found in the Vibhaṅga and explained in the Dhammasaṅgani, both canonical Abhidhamma texts. The Path of Purification also discusses them, saying they are called afflictions because they themselves are afflicted and because they afflict their associated mental states (Vism 22.49). They are ten in number:
(1–3) Greed (attachment, P. lobha), animosity (hatred, P. dosa), and confusion (P. moha) are called roots (P. mūla) because their presence determines the ethical quality of a mental state as well as the verbal and physical actions it motivates. Their opposites — liberality, loving-kindness, and wisdom — are the three roots of virtue. (4) Arrogance (P. māna) is one of the higher fetters, abandoned only at arhatship. On the basis of any of the five aggregates, which are impermanent, duḥkha, and not self, arrogance thinks, “I am superior, equal, or inferior.” (5) Afflictive views (P. diṭṭhi) are numerous but can be condensed into eternalism and nihilism. (6–8) Deluded doubt (P. vicikicchā), restlessness (P. uddhacca), and lethargy (P. thina) are three of the five hindrances (P. nīvaraṇa), which will be explained later. (9–10) Lack of integrity (P. ahirika) and lack of consideration for others (P. anottappa) are instrumental in creating destructive karma. Lack of integrity is directed inward. Under its influence, we do not respect our principles and precepts and thus do not abandon nonvirtuous thoughts and behavior.30 Lack of consideration for others is directed outward and does not abandon nonvirtuous thoughts and behavior even though they adversely affect others and their faith. Some of the above correspond to root afflictions in the Sanskrit tradition, whereas others are considered auxiliary afflictions.
Underlying Tendencies
The six root afflictions in the Sanskrit tradition are called underlying tendencies (anuśaya, anusaya) in the Pāli sūtras (MN 18.8) and Abhidharma.31 They are the same six, except attachment has been separated into two, making seven: attachment to sensuality (kamaragā), anger (P. paṭigha), views, deluded doubt, arrogance, existence (bhavarāga), and ignorance (P. avijjā). Vasubandhu lists the underlying tendencies in the same way.
Here attachment to sensuality is the attachment of the desire realm that hungers after sensory objects of the desire realm — sights, sounds, and so forth. Attachment to existence is attachment to birth in the form and formless realms; it is possessed by beings in all three realms who cling to the bliss of concentration. A human may abandon attachment for sensual objects in the desire realm but have strong attachment for meditative states in the form or formless realms. Beings born in the form realm are attached to existence in that realm or to existence in the formless realm and will strive to actualize that level of meditative absorption. Beings born in the formless realm are attached to existence there, although not to existence in the desire or form realms. Because they still hanker for saṃsāric existence, they lack the aspiration for liberation and cannot attain nirvāṇa unless they relinquish that attachment.
Although the main afflictive mental factors are listed as both underlying tendencies and root afflictions, they are seen differently in the Pāli Abhidhamma than in the Compendium of Knowledge. In the Pāli tradition, anusaya literally means “to lie down or to sleep along with.” Firmly established in the mind, underlying tendencies “sleep alongside” the mental continuum, acting as the causes for manifest afflictions. They are latent dispositions present even in newborn infants that enable manifest afflictions to arise when the appropriate causes and conditions are present.
Although seven underlying tendencies are listed, all defilements have a dormant form that is also called an underlying tendency. These may be stronger or weaker depending on the person’s actions and thoughts. When a certain view or emotion repeatedly arises in our minds — and especially when we act on it — its underlying tendency increases in strength. Saying someone has a hot temper means that his underlying tendency for anger is strong.
When afflictions arise and we counteract them by applying the antidotes, their underlying tendencies weaken. Training our minds in correct ways of thinking increases the strength of the antidotal mental factors, transforming someone who has a hot temper into someone who is kind and patient. Underlying tendencies begin to be eradicated from our mindstreams when we attain the supramundane path and become stream-enterers. This corresponds to the path of seeing in the Sanskrit tradition.
Vaibhāṣikas consider the underlying tendencies and the afflictions to be the same, whereas Sautrāntikas say that latent attachment is an underlying tendency and manifest attachment is a full entanglement. This difference in interpretation arose as the Abhidharmikas tried to explain how an affliction could be manifest now, disappear in fifteen minutes, and manifest again tomorrow. Without a permanent self, what connects the previous instance of an affliction to a later one? Sautrāntikas say that the underlying tendencies are latent forces, like seeds that produce manifest afflictions wh
en the right conditions are present. Since the afflictions, like consciousnesses, are impermanent, the underlying tendency of anger connects one instance of anger to another instance of anger the next day.
Vaibhāṣikas do not agree, saying that if these dormant potentials were always alongside the consciousness, there could never be a virtuous mental state, because virtuous mental states and dormant potentials are incompatible. Thus they say the underlying tendencies and the afflictions are the same.
Another Abhidharma school (Yaśomitra says it is the Vātsīputrīya) asserts that the underlying tendencies are abstract composites (viprayukta-saṃskāra) — impermanent things that are neither form nor consciousness. Here the underlying tendencies are neutral — neither virtuous nor nonvirtuous — and could abide alongside any mental state.32 This is similar to Tibetan thought on this topic: afflictions are mental factors. When a manifest affliction fades, a seed of that affliction remains. The seed is a neutral abstract composite. When the correct conditions come together, the seed turns into the manifest affliction, in this way connecting one instance of an affliction with a later instance. The same mechanism works for virtuous mental factors.
The Buddha noted three underlying tendencies as being particularly dangerous (MN 148.28):
When one is touched by a pleasant feeling, if one delights in it, welcomes it, and remains holding to it, the underlying tendency to attachment lies within one. When one is touched by a painful feeling, if one sorrows, grieves, laments, weeps, beating one’s breast, and becomes distraught, the underlying tendency to anger lies within one. When one is touched by a neutral feeling, if one does not understand as it actually is the origination, disappearance, gratification, danger, and escape33 in regard to that feeling, the underlying tendency to ignorance lies within one. Monastics, that one shall here and now make an end to duḥkha without abandoning the underlying tendency to attachment for pleasant feeling, without abolishing the underlying tendency to anger for painful feeling, without extirpating the underlying tendency to ignorance in regard to neutral feeling, without abandoning the ignorance [that is the root of saṃsāra] and arousing true knowledge — this is impossible.
Observing our lives, we clearly see that attachment immediately arises in response to pleasant feelings — for example, eating some tasty food; aversion arises in response to an unpleasant feeling, such as having a stomachache; ignorance arises in response to a neutral feeling. What is needed is wisdom, insight, and true knowledge to free our minds from these underlying tendencies.
However, these three underlying tendencies must not be abandoned in regard to all pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings (MN 44.25–28). In fact, the joy (prīti) and bliss (sukkha) experienced in the first dhyāna overpower the underlying tendency to sensual attachment. The unpleasant feeling from thinking about duḥkha overcomes the underlying tendency to anger by inspiring us to become a nonreturner. The neutral feeling in the fourth dhyāna leads to equanimity and employing that dhyāna to realize the four truths leads to arhatship.
Even before attaining insight and wisdom, we can temporarily lessen the underlying tendencies. When a pleasant feeling arises, be mindful of it but do not delight in it. Instead of clinging to and wanting more of that experience, simply let it be. In that way the underlying tendency to sensual attachment isn’t activated. Similarly, practice observing unpleasant feelings, and by recalling their transience, don’t arouse anger. Restraining our senses is also helpful because by decreasing contact with sensual objects, we experience fewer pleasant and unpleasant feelings and thus fewer instances of sensual attachment and anger.
Auxiliary Afflictions
In the Sanskrit tradition, the Compendium of Knowledge presents twenty auxiliary afflictions (upakleśa) that disturb the mind. They are called auxiliary because they are close to or related to the root afflictions and are classified according to the root afflictions with which they are associated.34
Afflictions derived from anger
1. Wrath (belligerence, krodha) is a mental factor that, due to an increase of anger, is a thoroughly malicious state of mind wishing to cause immediate harm.
2. Resentment (grudge holding, vengeance, upanāha) is a mental factor that firmly holds on to the fact that in the past we were harmed by a particular person and wishes to retaliate.
3. Spite (pradāsa) is a mental factor that is preceded by wrath or resentment, is an outcome of malice, and motivates us to speak harsh words in response to unpleasant words said by others.
4. Jealousy (īrṣyā) is a mental factor that, out of attachment to respect and material gain, is unable to bear the good qualities, possessions, opportunities, or virtue of others.
5. Cruelty (vihiṃsā) is a mental factor that, with a malicious intention that lacks any compassion or kindness, desires to harm, belittle, or disregard others. It is usually directed toward those we consider inferior to ourselves.
Afflictions derived from attachment
6. Miserliness (mātsarya) is a mental factor that, out of attachment to respect and material gain, firmly holds on to our possessions with no wish to give them away.
7. Haughtiness (mada) is a mental factor that, being attentive to the good fortune we possess, produces a false sense of confidence or security that leads to complacency.
8. Restlessness (agitation, excitement, auddhatya) is a mental factor that, through the force of attachment, does not allow the mind to rest solely on a virtuous object but scatters it here and there to many other objects.
Afflictions derived from ignorance
9. Concealment (mrakṣa) is a mental factor that wishes to hide our faults whenever another person with a benevolent intention free of attachment, confusion, hatred, or fear talks about such faults.
10. Lethargy (dullness, styāna) is a mental factor that, having caused the mind to become dull and thereby insensitive, does not comprehend its object clearly.
11. Laziness (kausīdya) is a mental factor that, having firmly grasped an object offering temporary happiness, either does not wish to do anything constructive or, although wishing to, is weak-minded. Laziness leads to excessive sleep, involvement with meaningless activities, and discouragement.
12. Lack of faith (lack of confidence or trust, āśraddhya) is a mental factor that, causing us to have no belief in or respect for that which is worthy of confidence — such as karma and its results and the Three Jewels — is the complete opposite of faith. It acts as the basis for laziness and disrespect.
13. Forgetfulness (muṣitasmṛtitā) is a mental factor that, having caused the apprehension of a virtuous object to be lost, induces memory of and distraction to an object of affliction.
14. Non-introspective awareness (non-clear comprehension, asaṃprajanya) is a mental factor that, being an afflictive intelligence, has made no, or only a rough, analysis and is not fully alert to the conduct of our body, speech, and mind, and thus causes us to become carelessly indifferent.
Afflictions derived from both attachment and ignorance
15. Pretension (māyā) is a mental factor that, being overtly attached to respect or material gain, fabricates a particularly excellent quality about ourselves and wishes to make it known to others with the thought to deceive them.
16. Deceit (dishonesty, śāṭhya) is a mental factor that, being overtly attached to respect or material gain, wishes to deceive others by hiding our faults or preventing others from knowing our faults.
Afflictions derived from ignorance, anger, and attachment
17. Lack of integrity (āhrīkya) is a mental factor that does not avoid destructive actions for reasons of personal conscience or for the sake of our Dharma practice. It is a supportive condition for all afflictions and the basis for not protecting our precepts.
18. Inconsideration for others (anapatrāpya) is a mental factor that, without taking others or their spiritual traditions into account, does not restrain from destructive behavior. It causes others to lose faith in us.
19. Heedlessnes
s (negligence, pramāda) is a mental factor that, when we are affected by laziness, wishes to act in an unrestrained manner without cultivating virtue or guarding the mind from objects or people that spark afflictions.
20. Distraction (vikṣepa) is a mental factor that, arising from any of the three poisons, is unable to direct the mind toward a constructive object and disperses it to a variety of other objects.
The Pāli tradition lists sixteen auxiliary afflictions (P. upakkilesa) that are offshoots of the three root afflictions (MN 7.3). Many of these overlap with the twenty in the Sanskrit tradition.
1. Covetousness and greed (P. abhijjhāvisamalobha) are aspects of craving. One commentary says covetousness is desire for and attachment to our own belongings, and greed is desire for and attachment to the belongings of others. Another commentary states that covetousness is attachment to an object that is suitable and has been obtained (e.g., coveting a new shirt that you need and obtain legally), while greed is attachment to an object that is unsuitable and has not been obtained (e.g., greedily desiring illegal drugs).
2. Malice (P. vyāpāda, byāpāda) is aversion that arises in nine cases when thinking, “He harmed me, is harming me, will harm me. He harmed, is harming, will harm those who are dear to me. He helped, is helping, will help my enemies.”
3. Wrath (P. kodha) is hatefulness and opposition that seeks to harm someone.
4. Resentment (P. upanāha) is accumulated anger and hostility. At first there is anger toward a person or situation. This anger persists and turns into resentment, which is continued animosity toward someone. Weighing us down emotionally and obscuring our mind spiritually, resentment grows when we insist on being right, make ourselves into a victim, or refuse to forgive.