Thinning the afflictions

What this passage does

How the afflictions end, and why it matters. Their subtle seeds dissolve with the mind (2.10); their active forms yield to meditation (2.11). They matter because they are the root of the store of karma (2.12), which ripens as birth, length of life and experience while the root remains (2.13), and is felt as joy or sorrow (2.14). Cut the root and karma bears no new fruit.

Learning goals

• Explain how the subtle and the active forms of the afflictions are each overcome.
• Explain how the afflictions are tied to karma, and the condition 'while the root remains'.
• Name the three fruits of karma and how they are felt.

The argument, step by step

1. In their subtle seed form, the afflictions are overcome by returning to their source.
2. Their active forms are overcome by meditation, as coarse dirt is shaken out before fine dirt is washed.
3. They must be overcome because the store of karma is rooted in them, to be felt in this life or lives unseen.
4. While that root remains, karma ripens as birth, length of life and experience.
5. Those fruits are felt as joy or sorrow, according to merit or demerit.
6. So the cure is at the root: without the afflictions, karma bears no new fruit.

The sūtras

1. 2.10 te pratiprasavaheyāḥ sūkṣmāḥ
   In their subtle form, they are overcome by returning to their source.
2. 2.11 dhyānaheyās tadvṛttayaḥ
   Their active forms are overcome by meditation.
3. 2.12 kleśamūlaḥ karmāśayo dṛṣṭādṛṣṭajanmavedanīyaḥ
   The store of karma is rooted in the afflictions and is felt in this life or in lives not yet seen.
4. 2.13 sati mūle tadvipāko jātyāyurbhogāḥ
   While the root remains, it ripens as birth, length of life and experience.
5. 2.14 te hlādaparitāpaphalāḥ puṇyāpuṇyahetutvāt
   These bear joy or sorrow, from merit or demerit.

Study

This passage answers two questions: how do the afflictions end, and why must they end at all?

How they end comes first, in two sūtras. 2.10: "In their subtle form, they are overcome by returning to their source." 2.11: "Their active forms are overcome by meditation." Vyāsa's comment on 2.2 had already set out the stages (Woods p. 105): the yoga of action thins the afflictions, meditative insight burns them like seeds, and the mind's last work is a return into its source. On 2.10 he says the burned seeds come to rest together with the mind, once the mind has done its work and dissolves (Woods p. 119). On 2.11 he gives the image of washing cloth: coarse dirt is shaken out first, and fine dirt is removed afterwards with effort and the right method (Woods p. 120). Vācaspati warns that the likeness holds only for coarse and fine. The last stage, the return of the seeds, is not won by effort at all (Woods p. 120). The word for that return, pratiprasava, comes back in the last sūtra of the text (4.34).

Why they must end is the subject of 2.12–2.14. 2.12: "The store of karma is rooted in the afflictions and is felt in this life or in lives not yet seen." Vyāsa says the store arises from desire, greed, delusion or anger, and that action done with great intensity can ripen within this life. His examples are the youth Nandīśvara, who became a god, and Nahuṣa, king of the gods, who became an animal (Woods p. 121). 2.13 names what ripens and on what condition: "While the root remains, it ripens as birth, length of life and experience." Vyāsa's image is rice. In its husk, with the seed unburned, it can sprout; husked or burned, it cannot (Woods pp. 122–123). He then discusses at length how one store of karma shapes a life (Woods pp. 123–130). 2.14 says how the fruit is felt: "These bear joy or sorrow, from merit or demerit."

The argument runs: afflictions, then karma, then three fruits, then joy and sorrow. Remove the first link and the chain bears no new fruit. Good karma is also a fruit of this chain, which 2.15 will press hard.

Readings differ on lives not yet seen. Vyāsa and the classical commentators take rebirth as fact. Many modern readers keep the psychology and leave the cosmology open: what we do in craving or fear trains us to do it again. A teacher should show the text's own frame first, then the application, and not present the text as neutral on rebirth.

For practice, the two stages give a realistic order. Meditation works on what is felt now. It does not by itself reach the seed. That takes insight ripened over time and, in the end, a return that is no longer effort. Students who expect a few months of sitting to end all reactivity are told by the text itself to expect stages.

For discussion

1. Why does the text deal with the subtle form of the afflictions (2.10) before the active form (2.11)?
2. What does Vyāsa's image of washing cloth teach about the order of practice, and where does Vācaspati say the image stops working?
3. Why must the afflictions be removed, and not just calmed, according to 2.12–2.13?
4. What is the force of the words 'while the root remains' in 2.13?
5. How can the psychology of 2.12 be taught honestly to students who do not accept rebirth?

A common misreading

Meditation is often presented as the whole cure. The text gives it one task, the active forms (2.11); the seeds go only when the mind returns to its source (2.10), and karma stops bearing fruit only when its root is gone (2.13).

A practice for the room

The coarse and the fine. Sit for two minutes and notice any strong, obvious feeling present now: restlessness, irritation, eagerness. Simply watch it, without fixing it. Then two minutes on what is quieter underneath: a faint mood, an expectation, a habit of posture. Then one minute of open sitting. The teacher closes by reading 2.11 and Vyāsa's image of shaking out coarse dirt before washing out the fine.