THOUGHTS ON THE BIG THREE by Konrei

All harmful karma ever committed by me since of old

On account of my beginningless greed, anger and ignorance,

Born of my body, mouth and thought,

Now I atone for it all.

“The Three Defilements”---Greed, Anger and Ignorance---are the badly-lit subbasement of the mind in Buddhist psychology. They are what Shakyamuni was referring to when he posited the Four Noble Truths, which, in sum, tell us that, "Life isn't what we want it to be; because it isn't, we're unhappy; when we decide it doesn't have to be, we become happy; and to help us make that decision, we should get plenty of sleep and eat a good breakfast every day."

The Buddhist term for a Defilement is “Kilesa” in Pali or “Klesha” in Sanskrit, and can be translated also as “affliction” or “poison” or even “fire.” These Kilesas have two manifestations: In one sense, they underlie our entire ingrained dualistic view of the universe; in the other sense, they trouble us personally and cause us to act in ways not in keeping with the Precepts.

Depending on the Buddhist sect, there are three, nine, ten, or as many as 108 Kilesas. Theravadan Buddhist temples usually have 108 steps, each step representing a Kilesa and a Precept. No matter how many Kilesas a particular Sangha recognizes, Greed, Anger and Ignorance always top the list. Others, like Conceit and Torpor and Wrong Views can be characterized as expressions of Greed, Anger and Ignorance, so let’s just stick with the Big Three that cause all our sufferings and prevent us from feeling tranquil.

We all know Greed: That wonderful little voice inside us that says, “Gimme dat t’ing!” But whatever “t’ing” it is, we will lose it, it may break, it loses its attractiveness, and in the end, we find we don’t really own it, right down to our own mind and body. So we cling. We cling to the senses, we cling to ideas, we cling to habits and rituals. Anything we cling to at a given time may be outmoded or not work for us. Ultimately, everything we cling to fails to function.

And we all know Anger: “I don’t wanna!”, "I don’t want to go to work today!"; "I don’t like Joe Dokes, as a matter of fact, I HATE Joe Dokes"; "What kind of lousy lunch is this?"

Dogen Zenji points out that our koan arises naturally in daily life. If we observe our Greed and our Anger we always find our koan. The answer to our koan cuts through our Ignorance.

Both Greed and Anger come from the importance of the “I” in our lives, from the Ego’s desire to protect itself---“To protect my idea of myself”---whether by girding myself ‘round with possessions for a sense of permanence or exiling those things from my life that threaten or don’t support my idea of my own permanence.

Ignorance is not complicated to explain: It works through self-justification. Whether we act well or ill we can be deluded. Thinking that we’re justified in hating Joe Dokes, or thinking that if we can befriend Joe Dokes we can turn things around are both ignorant, deluded thoughts. Baso’s answer, “I’m sitting zazen in order to become a Buddha” earned him a whack because his thinking was deluded. The outcomes we anticipate are delusions.

Bodhidharma said “No merit” to Emperor Wu in regard to all his works. Essentially, Ignorance and its handmaiden Delusion both come down to the underlying motives for our actions.

When we realize the emptiness of all five conditions we are freed of pain.

Just sit.