by Dalai Lama
Afflictions do not exist in external objects or in our cognitive faculties. Inherently existent afflictions are impossible to find; they are like illusions that lack a real essence and can be overcome. Therefore we must put the Buddha’s teachings into practice, for they are the medicine that will heal all the injuries of cyclic existence.
REFLECTION
1. Read and contemplate the above verses from Engaging in the Bodhisattvas’ Deeds one by one, speaking to yourself just as Śāntideva speaks to himself.
2. Remember the afflictions are not who you are; they are not in the very nature of your mind and can be eliminated.
3. Cultivate antipathy toward the afflictions and generate strong determination to become familiar with the antidotes to them through having a daily Dharma practice.
Compassion acts like preventative medicine for many of our afflictions. The greater our compassion, the more peace we will experience. My personal experience is that meditating on the suffering of sentient beings and generating compassion for them helps me to develop inner strength. When inner strength and self-confidence increase, fear and doubt diminish. That makes us naturally more open to others. Others then reciprocate by being friendly, and this nourishes better communication and more positive interactions with them.
To the contrary, if we are full of partiality, fear, hatred, and doubt, the door to our heart is closed, and everyone we encounter appears suspicious to us. The sad thing is that we then believe that others are just as suspicious of us as we are of them. That creates distance between us, and this spiral fosters loneliness and frustration.
All of us, but especially the younger generation, has the responsibility to make sure that the world is a peaceful place for everyone. This can become reality if we all make an effort to cultivate compassion. Our educational system should focus not only on training the intellect but also on training the heart. Let’s help future generations learn to be good citizens of the planet by modeling compassion and tolerance ourselves.
5
Afflictions and Karma, Their Seeds and Latencies
TRUE ORIGINS of duḥkha are those phenomena that give rise to cyclic existence and are in the nature of duḥkha. True origins consist of afflictions — which are rooted in ignorance — and polluted karma — actions created under the influence of ignorance that produce the three types of duḥkha. Of afflictions and karma, afflictions are chief because they give rise to karma and also act as conditions for karma to ripen. Without the presence of afflictions, polluted karma cannot be created, and even if seeds of previously created karma remain in our mindstreams, they cannot ripen into duḥkha without the presence of afflictions.
In the context of the twelve links of dependent origination that describe how we cycle in saṃsāra, karma refers to volitional actions done under the force of afflictions that bring rebirth in cyclic existence. This is a more specific meaning of karma than used in volume 2, where we spoke of many kinds of actions, not all of which propel rebirth. To attain liberation — the stoppage of uncontrolled rebirth in saṃsāra — we need to eliminate the afflictive obscurations that cause it. These are ignorance, all the other afflictions that it produces, and the seeds of these afflictions.40
In this chapter we will investigate different types of afflictions and karma: acquired and innate afflictions, coarse and subtle afflictions, underlying and manifest afflictions, seeds and latencies of afflictions, seeds of karma, and having-ceased. Knowing these expands our understanding of the workings of our minds, the evolution of saṃsāra, and the path to liberation.
Acquired and Innate Afflictions
Afflictions are of two kinds: innate and acquired. Innate afflictions have been with our mindstreams since beginningless time. We did not learn them from anyone and they continue from one rebirth to the next. Innate afflictions are present in babies, animals, insects, and beings born in other saṃsāric realms. At no time in our wandering in saṃsāra have we been free from them.
Acquired afflictions are those learned in this lifetime through adopting the flawed reasoning of mistaken philosophies and ideologies. For example, we may study a philosophy that asserts a permanent soul or an inherently existent creator and come to believe the arguments presented for their existence. Innate and acquired self-grasping ignorance do not differ in terms of how they grasp the object — both grasp it as inherently existent. They differ in that innate self-grasping ignorance is deeply ingrained and arises frequently and spontaneously. Acquired self-grasping is learned in this life through reflecting on fallacious reasonings. Although innate self-grasping ignorance is the root of cyclic existence, the acquired version is especially insidious because it is based on thinking about how things exist in an incorrect manner and reaching erroneous conclusions. It may cause someone to cling to wrong views and be unreceptive to teachings on emptiness.
Strong clinging to identities of this life — our nationality, religion, ethnicity, race, class, educational level, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth — is an acquired affliction. We learned these identities in this lifetime and were taught to be attached to them. We then think, “I am a this-and-that and you should treat me in such-and-such a way.” While the specific identity is acquired, the mind that clings to “I am” is innate.
Acquired afflictions cannot come about without their innate forms. Acquired afflictions abound and cause horrible suffering. For example, innate anger exists in our mindstreams. If someone teaches us false reasons why a particular racial or ethnic group is inferior or violent, we may believe these and have strong prejudice and anger regarding anyone in that group. Holding the belief, “This land is mine because a religious scripture said so” is acquired attachment. Thinking, “Killing the enemies of my people is justified by this political theory or religious belief” is acquired hostility. “My racial or ethnic group is morally superior” is an example of acquired arrogance. Thinking, “The mind is the brain” is an acquired wrong view.
Although these particular manifestations of afflictions were not present in us at birth, they still can be extremely dangerous and harmful. When people are taught by friends, family, or society to adhere to acquired afflictions, wars, oppression, and environmental destruction easily follow.
Sages and tenet schools have differing views regarding when afflictions are abandoned on the path. According to the Treasury of Knowledge, all five afflictive views and deluded doubt are abandoned on the path of seeing, while the other four root afflictions — attachment, anger, ignorance, and arrogance — are abandoned on the path of meditation as well.
According to the Ornament of Clear Realizations (Abhisamayālaṃkāra) and the Prāsaṅgika school, deluded doubt, wrong views, holding wrong views as supreme, and view of rules and practices are abandoned on the path of seeing, whereas the acquired forms of view of a personal identity and view of extremes are abandoned on the path of seeing and their innate forms are abandoned on the path of meditation. The acquired forms of all other afflictions are abandoned on the path of seeing and their innate forms are abandoned on the path of meditation. All afflictions have been eradicated at the time of becoming an arhat or an eighth-ground bodhisattva. Since direct realization of emptiness is needed to eliminate acquired afflictions, we should not underestimate their power to cause harm in this life and to create the causes to experience unfortunate rebirths.
The Pāli tradition does not have an explicit division into acquired and innate afflictions. However, some afflictions are said to be easier to eradicate than others: some are abandoned by seeing while others are abandoned later by meditation.41 The former are overcome by stream-enterers, the latter by nonreturners and arhats. Since stream-enterers’ realization of the unconditioned — nirvāṇa — is not as strong as that of nonreturners and arhats, the fetters they abandon through this first seeing of nirvāṇa — view of a personal identity, deluded doubt, and view of rules and practices — are not as ingrained as the rest of the fetters that are abandoned by meditation on the higher pa
ths.
REFLECTION
1. What is the difference between innate and acquired afflictions?
2. Make examples in your life of acquired afflictions — certain biases, prejudices, fears, resentments, or jealousies — that you learned from faulty philosophies or from listening to others who have those ideas.
3. Consider the many reasons why those beliefs are false. Try to view those people or places from a different perspective so that your mind can be clearer and free from anxiety, bias, and incorrect conceptions.
Coarse and Subtle Afflictions
Coarse and subtle afflictions are spoken of primarily in the Prāsaṅgika school because its definitions of ignorance and the object of negation when meditating on selflessness are unique. Lower Buddhist schools say that the ignorance that is the root of saṃsāra grasps a self-sufficient substantially existent person, whereas Prāsaṅgikas assert it grasps inherent existence. For them, grasping a self-sufficient substantially existent person is a coarse affliction, as are the anger, attachment, and other afflictions based on it, whereas the ignorance grasping inherent existence as well as the afflictions based on it are subtle afflictions. Because the lower schools accept the inherent existence of persons and phenomena, they do not negate the afflictions based on it.
Most of the afflictions ordinary beings experience on a daily basis are coarse ones. There is nothing subtle about a person who is exploding with anger or one overwhelmed by greed. It is possible to notice the subtle afflictions only after realizing the lack of a self-sufficient substantially existent person.
Seeds, Latencies, and Having-Ceased
In contemplating the Buddha’s teachings, ancient Indian sages discussed many topics. One concerned continuity: How does a karmic action created in one life bring a result in another life? How can a mental factor such as anger or compassion be present in our mindstreams one day, fade away, and then manifest again the next day? This is where latencies, seeds, and having-ceased come in.
In his autocommentary to the Supplement, Candrakīrti says “that which pollutes the mindstream and also leaves imprints and causes the continuation of something” is called a latency. Other English synonyms for latency are predisposition, habitual tendency, imprint, and propensity. Of the three types of impermanent phenomena — forms, minds, and abstract composites — seeds and latencies are abstract composites.
In Illumination of the Thought, Tsongkhapa said:
Of the two latencies — one that is a seed and the other that is non-seed — cognitive obscurations are the latter.
We can speak of latencies (vāsanā) in two forms: latencies in the form of seeds (bīja) and latencies in the form of potencies (samartha); the latter are called non-seed latencies. When the word latency is used in general, it refers to both seed and non-seed latencies. A seed is necessarily a latency, but a latency is not necessarily a seed; it could be a non-seed latency.
For the sake of ease, in English, we’ll call non-seed latencies “latencies” to differentiate them from seeds.42 Seed has the connotation of being the cause of something. Latency implies retaining the potential or energy of something. Although the mind that gives rise to seeds and latencies may be virtuous or nonvirtuous, seeds and latencies themselves are neutral.
Afflictions and Their Seeds
Afflictions arise in our minds in a manifest and active form — we become angry, jealous, greedy, or lazy — and we act motivated by these manifest afflictions. However, even though we haven’t eliminated anger from our mindstreams completely, we aren’t always angry. We may be sitting calmly but when someone criticizes us, our anger is triggered and becomes manifest. What connects the prior and later instances of anger? This is the function of the seed of anger. When manifest anger subsides, the seed of anger remains on our mindstreams. The seed provides for the continuity of anger in our mindstreams even when anger itself isn’t manifest. The seed of anger is not anger; it is not an affliction, although it is the substantial cause for anger to arise again. Both anger and the seed of anger are afflictive obscurations and are not fully abandoned until we attain liberation or the eighth bodhisattva ground.
We cannot simultaneously experience two manifest mental states that are contradictory — we cannot be angry and loving at exactly the same moment. When we are loving, anger is not manifest in our minds, but we haven’t totally eliminated anger from our mindstreams either. The seed of anger remains on our mindstreams when love is manifest, and it connects one instance of anger to the next.
Both innate and acquired afflictions have an aspect that is manifest and an aspect that is a seed. Manifest innate attachment arises in our minds from seeing an attractive object; it is a consciousness, whereas its seed — the potential set on the mindstream from a previous moment of attachment that can produce a future moment of attachment — is an abstract composite, an impermanent phenomenon that is neither form nor consciousness.
Manifest acquired afflictive obscurations are afflictions that are manifest in the mind due to learning incorrect ideas. If we read about a cosmic mind from which our minds originate at birth and dissolve back into at death, and then believe that exists, that wrong view is a manifest acquired affliction. The seed of that is a potential that can produce another moment of this incorrect belief in the future.
The seed of anger is not what psychologists call repressed anger. Having the seed of anger does not mean that there is low-grade anger in our minds all the time. Rather, it simply means that the potential to become angry again exists in our mindstreams, even though we are not angry now.
Similarly self-grasping isn’t always manifest in our minds, but its continuity hasn’t been eliminated; it is present in the form of a seed. When we encounter certain conditions — for example, someone falsely accuses us of bad behavior — this seed causes self-grasping to arise as a manifest mental state. In the same way, during the white appearance, red increase, black near attainment, and clear light of death of saṃsāric beings, self-grasping is not manifest although it is present as a seed. Because it has not yet been abandoned, self-grasping will reemerge in manifest form in our future lives.
There are also seeds for virtuous consciousness. These enable us to experience manifest faith, wisdom, concentration, and compassion today and again tomorrow, even though they were in seed form while we were asleep.
Reflection on the existence of the seeds of afflictions keeps us humble. After working hard to subdue a particular affliction, we may think, “That one is taken care of. I don’t need to continue working on it.” But my (Chodron’s) experience is that when we think like that and become a little smug, the affliction will once again surge up strongly when we least expect it. Because seeds of afflictions remain on our mindstream, complacency is ill advised, whereas humility brings the heedfulness necessary to stay on track in our practice.
The Pāli tradition speaks of underlying tendencies as connecting one instance of a root affliction with a later instance. It also explains that fetters and other defilements exist on three levels: (1) As underlying tendencies (P. anusaya), they are latent potencies in the mind. (2) As manifest fetters (P. pariyuṭṭāna), they actively enslave the mind. (3) As motivating forces (P. vītikkama), they motivate nonvirtuous actions of body and speech.
When we ordinary beings are not resentful, the underlying tendency of resentment still exists in our mindstreams. Someone criticizing us triggers this seed or underlying tendency and we become resentful; this is manifest resentment. If we leave our resentment unchecked and neglect to apply an antidote, it will increase and motivate us to say cruel words or plot how to harm someone. This is the motivating level of resentment.
A monk at the Buddha’s time believed that fetters existed in a person’s continuum only when they were manifest and active. If that were the case, the Buddha replied, then a newborn infant would not have the view of a personal identity because she doesn’t even have the notion of a personal identity. But the underlying tendencies to the view of a personal ide
ntity are present in her mindstream. Similarly, a newborn does not have the notion of “teachings,” yet the underlying tendency to doubt the teachings is in him. Infants and all other beings who have not attained stream-entry have the five lower fetters because they have the underlying tendencies for them. The commentary says that the underlying tendencies and the fetters are not distinct; a defilement is called an underlying tendency in the sense that it has yet to be abandoned and still resides in the mindstream; it is called a fetter in the sense that it binds us to cyclic existence (MN 64).
The higher training in ethical conduct helps us to restrain defilements before they can motivate destructive physical and verbal actions. The higher training in concentration suppresses the manifest level of defilements, although it alone cannot eradicate them because they still exist as underlying tendencies in the mind. Only an ārya’s higher training in wisdom can eradicate the underlying tendencies completely.
Latencies of Afflictions
Latencies of afflictions are predispositions, imprints, or tendencies on the mindstream. Subtler than the seeds of afflictions, the latencies of afflictions do not give rise to manifest afflictions. They are cognitive obscurations that are possessed by all sentient beings, including arhats and pure-ground bodhisattvas (bodhisattvas of the eighth, ninth, and tenth grounds who have purified their continuums of afflictive obscurations). The latencies of self-grasping ignorance give rise to the appearance and “perception”43 of inherent existence. Latencies of ignorance and of afflictions also obscure the mind from directly seeing the two truths simultaneously. The latencies of attachment and other afflictions cause arhats to behave in peculiar ways sometimes: they may spontaneously jump, speak harshly, or have unclear clairvoyance, even though they lack any afflictive motivation. This latency is more like habit. At buddhahood all cognitive obscurations as well as all latencies of afflictions have been eliminated forever, so that a buddha’s body, speech, and mind are completely free from impediments and endowed with all excellent qualities.