The History of Buddhist Thought c18.7

c18.7

For Buddhism final release is brought about by a process of training of the self, in which it is released by stages from the bonds or fetters that hinder complete insight. The disciple, when he begins to meditate (p. 46), devotes himself to purifying his mind from the five hindrances, sensual passion or longing for the world, malice, sloth and torpor, distraction and agitation, and doubt. He is like a man freed from a debt, or recovered from sickness, or loosed from the bonds of prison, or as a freed slave. There is also a list of ten fetters, which are fitted into the scheme of the four stages of the Path. The first five are the lower fetters: belief in a permanent individuality, doubt, belief in mere morality and rites, sensual passion, malice; and the five higher: desire for existence in the world of form (which here includes everything below the formless world), desire for existence in the formless world, pride, distraction, and ignorance.¹ Other forms of the ten fetters exist, and they appear to be a later formulation than the fundamental division of the three āsavas: sensual desire, desire for existence (two forms of craving or grasping), and ignorance. Still another arrangement of those qualities of character which have to be eradicated exists in the certainly later list of the kilesas, usually translated depravities: greed, hatred, stupidity, pride, false views, doubt, sloth, distraction, shamelessness, recklessness.² The first three also occur independently as the three roots of demerit or bad action. Greed (lobha) is a positive form of craving and is correlative to hatred (dosa), the hostility to what is unpleasant. Stupidity or dullness of mind (moha) equally leads to unmeritorious actions. It is these roots that have to be destroyed, not the mere avoidance of bad karma which they produce.