摩訶止觀 6.3

6.3

Second, embodying the provisionality of thought to enter emptiness to destroy phenomena everywhere has three parts: first, clarifying the provisionality of thought; second, clarifying embodiment and contemplation; third, clarifying their stages. 'Provisionality of thought' refers to greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance. These are called the 'blunt proclivities', and are also called the 'fundamental three poisons'. Spread through the three realms, they constitute ten. Furthermore, regarding the three realms there are altogether nine stages, and each stage has nine grades, totaling eighty-one grades; all of them can moisten karma and cause one to undergo rebirth in the three realms. Even at the first fruit [of the stream-enterer] they are not yet exhausted through seven returns, just as when a lamp is extinguished it flares up before going out. Although such a one still has desire, he does not commit sexual misconduct except with his wife; although he still has anger, he does not kill when tilling the earth; although he still has folly, he does not calculate intrinsic reality. The power of the morality confluent with the path is naturally like this; hence they are called the 'fundamental afflictions'. They are not like delusions of view, which are sprawling and without direction, generating attachment whenever encountering objects.