FOR A LONG TIME AGO

Mind is more multi-featured than a multi figured painting …

Mind is more variegated than the varieties of animals …..

Therefore, O monks, should one often reflect upon one's mind thus: "For a long time has this mind been defiled by greed, by hatred, be delusion." Mental defilements make beings impure, mental cleansing purifies them.

These roots have their opposites: non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion. These are the three roots of good: of all acts of unselfishness, liberality and renunciation; of all expressions of loving-kindness and compassion; of all achievements in knowledge and understanding.

These six mental states are the rots from which everything harmful and beneficial sprouts. They are the roots of the Tree of Life with its sweet and bitter fruits.

Greed and hatred, maintained and fed by delusion, are the universal impelling forces of all animate life, individually and socially. Fortunately, the roots of good also reach into our world and keep the forces of evil in check, but the balance is a precarious one needing to be preserved by constant watchfulness and effort.

On the level of inanimate nature, too we find counterparts to greed and hatred in the forces of attraction and repulsion, kept in their purposeless reactive movement by inherent nescience, which cannot provide a motive for cessation of the process. Thus, through an unfathomable past, the macrocosm of nature and the microcosm of mind have continued their contest between attraction and repulsion, greed and hatred; and unless stopped by voluntary effort and insight, they will so continue for aeons to come. This cosmic conflict of opposing energies, unsolved on its own level, is one aspect of dukkha (unsatisfactoriness): the ill of restless, senseless movement as felt by a sensitive being.

On a human level, too, we see that man, who proudly believes himself to be a 'free agent' - the master of his life and even nature - is in his spiritually undeveloped state actually a passive patient driven about by inner forces he does not recognise. Pulled by his greed and pushed by his hatred, in his blindness he does not see that the brakes for stopping these frantic movements are in his reach, within his own heart. The brakes are the roots of the good themselves, which can be cultivated to such a degree that greed, hatred and delusion are utterly destroyed.

Though we have spoken of the six roots as being 'roots of good and evil', our use of the terms 'good' and 'evil' is provisional, a simplification chosen to introduce this teaching by familiar terms. In the Buddhist texts they are called the roots of the wholesome (kusala-mula) and the roots of unwholesome (akusala-mula). And thus we, too, shall generally call them.

This differentiation of terms marks an important distinction, for the 'spread' of the mental states called roots is much wider and deeper than the moral realm to which the words 'good' and 'evil' refer. The distinction may be defined as follows. An intentional action performed by body and speech is immoral - an evil or a 'sin' - when it is motivated by the unwholesome roots and is intentionally and directly harmful to others. This constitutes socially significant immorality, for which it is the criterion. Such actions are termed unwholesome roots, wishing the harm of others, constitute individually significant immorality, for which they are the criterion. They include thoughts such as those of injury, theft, fraud and rape, and also false ideologies leading to the harm of others or condoning such harm. Whether or not these thoughts are followed by deeds or words, they constitute unwholesome mental kamma.

With greed, hatred and delusion, in any degree, do not cause intentional harm to others, they are not evil or immoral in the strict sense of our definition. However, they are sill kammically unwholesome in that they maintain bondage and lead to unpleasant results. Similarly, the term 'wholesome' extends beyond socially significant morality to comprise also what is individually beneficial, such a acts of renunciation and attempts to understand the nature of reality.

The recent crisis of theistic faith which has taken hold on the west has brought in its trial a moral crisis as well. For many, belief in God has been shattered, and often those who lose their belief in God fail to see any convincing reason for morality without a divine sanction coming down from above. Left without a sound foundation for ethics, they either accept materialistic political ideologies or allow their conduct to be guided by self-interest. Yet we also find today, a growing number of people seeking better alternatives. To them the Buddha's teaching on the wholesome and unwholesome roots provides a criterion on good and evil that is neither theological nor authoritarian but experiential, one with a sound psychological basis offering an autonomous pragmatic motivation for avoiding evil and choosing the good.

The social and political motivations for moral conduct proposed to modern man may not openly contradict the basis sentiments of morality, but as their structures are bound to specific historical conditions and reflect the varying self-interests and prejudices of the dominant social group, the values they propose are highly relative, lacking universal validity. In contract Buddhist ethics, being based on psychological fact and not on external contingencies, provides a core of moral principles inherently free from relativistic limitations, valid for all time and under all circumstances. By introspection and observation, we can understand that the unwholesome roots are undesirable mental states, productive of suffering for ourselves and others; and since it is common nature to avoid suffering and to desire happiness, we can understand that it serves our own long-range interest as well as the good of others to restrain actions born of these roots and to act in ways motivated by their wholesome opposites. A brief survey of the evil roots will make this clear.

Greed is a state of lack, need and want. It is always seeking fulfillment and lasting satisfaction, but its drive is inherently insatiable, and thus as long as it endures it maintains the sense of lack.

Hatred, in all its degrees, is also a state of dissatisfaction. Though objectively it arises in response to undesired people or circumstances, its true origins are subjective and internal, chiefly frustrated desire and wounded pride. Buddhist psychology extends the range of hatred beyond simple anger and enmity to include a variety of negative emotions - such as disappointment, dejection, anxiety and despair - representing misguided reaction to the impermanence, insecurity and imperfection inherent in all conditioned existence.

Delusion, taking he form of ignorance, is a state of confusion, bewilderment and helplessness. In its aspect of false views, delusion issues in dogmatism; it takes on a fanatical, even obsessive, character, and makes the mind rigid and encapsulated.

All three unwholesome roots lead to inner disharmony and social conflict. In Tibetan paintings they are depicted at the very hub of the Wheel of Life, symbolically represented by a cock, a pig and a snake, turning round and round, catching each other's tails. The three unwholesome roots, indeed, produce and support each other.

The root of greed gives rise to resentment, anger and hatred against those who obstruct the gratification of desire or compete in the chase to gain the desired objects - whether sensual enjoyment, power, dominance or fame. In this way leads to conflict and quarrels. When frustrated, instead of producing enmity and aversion, greed may bring about grief, sadness, despair, envy and jealousy - states which also come under the heading of hatred. The pain of deprivation and frustration again sharpens the keenness of desire, which then seeks an escape from pain by indulging in other kinds of enjoyment.

Both greed and hatred are always linked to delusion. They are grounded upon delusion and, on their part, produce still more delusion as we pursue the objects we desire or flee from those we dislike. Both love and hate blind us to the dangers besetting our pursuits; they lead us away from our true advantage. It is the delusion beneath our love and hate that really blinds us, delusion that leads us astray.

The basic delusion, from all its other forms spring, is the idea of an abiding self: the belief in an ego. For the sake of this illusory ego men lust and hate; upon this they build their imagination and pride. This ego-belief must first be clearly comprehended as a delusive view-point. One must pierce through the illusion of self by cultivating right understanding through penetrative thought and meditative insight.

Though the wholesome and unwholesome roots are individual mental states, their manifestation and repercussions have the greatest social significance. Each individual in society rises up at once to protect himself, his loved ones, his property, security and freedom, from the greed, hatred and ignorance may in turn arouse others to anxious concern and resentment, though he may not be aware of this or care about it. From all this there results an intricate interlocking of suffering - suffering caused o others and suffering experienced by oneself. Hence the Buddha repeatedly said that the unwholesome roots cause harm both to oneself and to others, while the wholesome roots are sources of benefit for both the individual and society.

The wholesome and unwholesome roots are of paramount human concern on all levels. As the originating causes of kamma, our life-affirming and rebirth-producing intentional actions, they are the motive powers and driving forces of our deeds, words and thoughts. They mould our character and our destiny and hence determine the nature of our rebirth. Being dominant features in the features in the structure of the mind, the unwholesome roots are used in the Abhidhamma Patika for the classification of unwholesome consciousness and also for a typology of temperaments. All stages of the path to deliverance are closely concerned with the wholesome and unwholesome roots. At the very beginning, the coarsest form of greed, hatred and irresponsible ignorance have to be abandoned through virtue (sila), while in the advanced stages the aids of meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (panna) have to be applied to a deeper-reaching removal of the unwholesome roots and to the cultivation of the wholesome ones. Even Arahantship and Nibbana - the consummation of the great quest - are both explained in terms of the roots: as the extinction of greed, hatred and delusion.

This wide-ranging significance of the Buddha's teaching on the roots places it as the very core of the Dhamma. Showing the distinct marks of a fully enlightened mind, it is a teaching simple as well as profound, and hence accessible on many levels. The fact that greed, hatred and delusion, in their extreme forms, are the root causes of much misery and evil should be painfully obvious to every morally sensitive person. Such an initial understanding, open to commonsense, may well grow into comprehension. It may then become the insight that moves one to enter the path to deliverance - eradication of greed, hatred and delusion.

Within the framework of the Buddha's teaching, the Roots of Good and Evil have found their place in a great variety of contexts. To illustrate this by an ample selection of Buddhist texts - almost entirely taken from the discourses of the Buddha - is the intention of the following pagees.

May progress on the Path prevail and may there be a steady growth of the Roots of Good.

Homage to Him Who has seen the Roots of All Things!

Namo te mula-dassavi

Greed is the root of heedlessness,
A cause of strife is greed.
Greed into enslavement grads.
A hungry ghost one will in future in future be.
The Buddha who greed's nature fully knows
I worship Him, the Greed-free One.

Vihannamulako doso, doso virupakarako,
vinasakarako doso, doso paramhi neraya.
Tam dosam parijanantam vande'ham vitadosakam.

Hate is the root of turbulance,
And ugliness results from hate.
Through hatred much destruction comes,
To an infernal world one will in future go.
The Buddha who hate's nature fully knows
I worship Him, the Hate-free One.

Sabbaghamulako moho, moho sabbitikarako,
sabbandhakarako moho, moho paramhi svadiko.
Tam moham parijanantam vande'ham vitamohakam.

Delusion is the root of all this misery,
Creator of all ills is ignorant delusion.
Mind's blindness from delusion stems,
As a dumb animal one will in future live.
The Buddha who delusion's nature fully knows
I worship Him, the Undeluded One.

A traditional, devotional Pali text from Sri Lanka, Source unknown.