Fetter (Buddhism) Explained

In Buddhism, a mental fetter, chain or bond (Pāli: samyojana,) shackles a sentient being to saṃsāra, the cycle of lives with dukkha. By cutting through all fetters, one attains nibbāna (Pali; Skt.: निर्वाण, nirvāa).

Fetter of suffering

Throughout the Pali canon, the word "fetter" is used to describe an intrapsychic phenomenon that ties one to suffering. For example, in the Itivuttak, the Buddha says:

Elsewhere, the suffering caused by a fetter is implied as in this more technical discourse from Samyutta Nikaya 35.232, where Ven. Sariputta converses with Ven. Kotthita:

Lists of fetters

The fetters are enumerated in different ways in the Pali canon's Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka.

Sutta Pitaka's list of ten fetters

The Pali canon's Sutta Pitaka identifies ten "fetters of becoming":^[1]

1. belief in a self (Pali: )^[2]
2. doubt or uncertainty, especially about the Buddha's awakeness (vicikicchā)^[3]
3. attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)^[4]
4. sensual desire (kāmacchando)^[5]
5. ill will (vyāpādo or byāpādo)^[6]
6. lust for material existence, lust for material rebirth (rūparāgo)^[7]
7. lust for immaterial existence, lust for rebirth in a formless realm (arūparāgo)^[8]
8. conceit (māna)^{[9] [10]}
9. restlessness (uddhacca)^[11]
10. ignorance (avijjā)^[12]

As indicated in the adjacent table, throughout the Sutta Pitaka, the first five fetters are referred to as "lower fetters" (orambhāgiyāni saṃyojanāni) and are eradicated upon becoming a non-returner; and, the last five fetters are referred to as "higher fetters" (uddhambhāgiyāni saṃyojanāni), eradicated by an arahant.^[13]

Three fetters

Both the Sagīti Sutta (DN 33) and the Dhammasai (Dhs. 1002-1006) refer to the "three fetters" as the first three in the aforementioned Sutta Pitaka list of ten:

1. belief in a self ()
2. doubt (vicikicchā)
3. attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)^[14]

According to the Canon, these three fetters are eradicated by stream-enterers and once-returners.^[15]

Abhidhamma Pitaka's list of ten fetters

The Abhidhamma Pitaka's Dhamma Sangani (Dhs. 1113-34) provides an alternate list of ten fetters, also found in the Khuddaka Nikaya's Culla Niddesa (Nd2 656, 1463) and in post-canonical commentaries. This enumeration is:^[16]

1. sensual lust (Pali: kāma-rāga)
2. anger ()
3. conceit (māna)
4. views ()
5. doubt (vicikicchā)
6. attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)
7. lust for existence (bhava-rāga)
8. jealousy (issā)
9. greed (macchariya)
10. ignorance (avijjā).

The commentary mentions that views, doubt, attachment to rites and rituals, jealousy and greed are thrown off at the first stage of Awakening (sotāpatti); gross sensual lust and anger by the second stage (sakadāgāmitā) and even subtle forms of the same by the third stage (anāgāmitā); and conceit, lust for existence and ignorance by the fourth and final stage (arahatta).

Fetters related to householder affairs

Uniquely, the Sutta Pitaka's "Householder Potaliya" Sutta (MN 54), identifies eight fetters (including three of the Five Precepts) whose abandonment "lead[s] to the cutting off of affairs" (vohāra-samucchedāya saṃvattanti):

1. destroying life ()
2. stealing ()
3. false speech (musāvādo)
4. slandering (pisunā)
5. coveting and greed (giddhilobho)
6. aversion (nindāroso)
7. anger and malice (kodhūpāyāso)
8. conceit (atimāno)^[17]

Individual fetters

The following fetters are the first three mentioned in the Sutta Pitaka's list of ten fetters, as well as the Sagīti Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitaka's list of "three fetters" (DN 33, Dhs. 1002 ff.). As indicated below, eradication of these three fetters is a canonical indicator of one's being irreversibly established on the path to Enlightenment.

Identity view (sakkāya-dihi)

Etymologically, kāya means "body," sakkāya means "existing body," and means "view" (here implying a wrong view, as exemplified by the views in the table below).

In general, "belief in an individual self" or, more simply, "self view" refers to a "belief that in one or other of the khandhas there is a permanent entity, an attā."^[18]

Similarly, in MN 2, the Sabbasava Sutta, the Buddha describes "a fetter of views" in the following manner:

"This is how [a person of wrong view] attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? ... Shall I be in the future? ... Am I? Am I not? What am I? ...'

"As one attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises: ...

• 'I have a self...'

• 'I have no self...'

• 'It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self...'

• 'It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self...'

• 'It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self...'

• 'This very self of mine ... is the self of mine that is constant...'

"This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed ... is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress."^[19]

Doubt (vicikicchā)

In general, "doubt" (vicikicchā) refers to doubt about the Buddha's teachings, the Dhamma. (Alternate contemporaneous teachings are represented in the adjacent table.)

More specifically, in SN 22.84, the Tissa Sutta,^[20] the Buddha explicitly cautions against uncertainty regarding the Noble Eightfold Path, which is described as the right path to Nibbana, leading one past ignorance, sensual desire, anger and despair.

Attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāso)

Śīla refers to "moral conduct", vata (or bata) to "religious duty, observance, rite, practice, custom,"^[21] and parāmāsa to "being attached to" or "a contagion" and has the connotation of "mishandling" the Dhamma.^[22] Altogether, sīlabbata-parāmāso has been translated as "the contagion of mere rule and ritual, the infatuation of good works, the delusion that they suffice"^[23] or, more simply, "fall[ing] back on attachment to precepts and rules."^[24]

While the fetter of doubt can be seen as pertaining to the teachings of competing samana during the times of the Buddha, this fetter regarding rites and rituals likely refers to some practices of contemporary brahmanic authorities.^[25]

Cutting through the fetters

In MN 64, the "Greater Discourse to Mālunkyāputta," the Buddha states that the path to abandoning the five lower fetters (that is, the first five of the aforementioned "ten fetters") is through using jhana attainment and vipassana insights in tandem.^[26] In SN 35.54, "Abandoning the Fetters," the Buddha states that one abandons the fetters "when one knows and sees ... as impermanent" (Pali: anicca) the twelve sense bases (āyatana), the associated six sense-consciousness (), and the resultant contact (phassa) and sensations (vedanā).^[27] Similarly, in SN 35.55, "Uprooting the Fetters," the Buddha states that one uproots the fetters "when one knows and sees ... as nonself" (anatta) the sense bases, sense consciousness, contact and sensations.^[28]

The Pali canon traditionally describes cutting through the fetters in four stages:

• one cuts the first three fetters (Pali: ) to be a "stream enterer" (sotapanna);
• one cuts the first three fetters and significantly weakens the next two fetters to be a "once returner" (sakadagami);
• one cuts the first five fetters (orambhāgiyāni samyojanāni) to be a "non-returner" (anagami);
• one cuts all ten fetters to be an arahant.^[29]

Relationship to other core concepts

Similar Buddhist concepts found throughout the Pali Canon include the five hindrances (nīvaraāni) and the ten defilements (kilesā). Comparatively speaking, in the Theravada tradition, fetters span multiple lifetimes and are difficult to remove, while hindrances are transitory obstacles. Defilements encompass all mental defilements including both fetters and hindrances.^[30]

See also

• Anatta, regarding the first fetter ()
• Four stages of enlightenment, regarding cutting the fetters
• Five hindrances, also involving the fourth (kamacchanda), fifth (vyapada), ninth (uddhacca) and second (vicikiccha) fetters
• Upadana (Clinging), where the traditional four types of clinging are clinging to sense-pleasure (kamupadana), wrong views (ditthupadana), rites and rituals (silabbatupadana) and self-doctrine (attavadupadana)

Bibliography

• Bodhi, Bhikkhu (2000). The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. .
• Bodhi, Bhikkhu (18 Jan 2005). MN 10: Satipatthana Sutta (continued) [Ninth dharma talk on the Satipatthana Sutta (MP3 audio file)]. Available on-line at http://www.bodhimonastery.net/MP3/M0060_MN-010.mp3.
• Gethin, Rupert (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
• Gunaratana, Henepola (2003). Satipatthana Sutta [Dharma talks (MP3 on CD)]. High View, WV: Bhavana Society. Orderable on-line at https://web.archive.org/web/20070205193623/http://www.bhavanasociety.org/resource/satipatthana_sutta_cd/.
• Harvey, Peter (1990/2007). An introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, history and practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
• , Bhikkhu & Bhikkhu Bodhi (2001). The Middle Length Discourse of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. .
• Nyanaponika Thera (trans.) (1974). Alagaddupama Sutta: The Snake Simile (MN 22). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Retrieved 15 Aug. 2010 from "Access to Insight" (2006) at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.022.nypo.html .
• Rhys Davids, C.A.F. ([1900], 2003). Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, of the Fourth Century B.C., Being a Translation, now made for the First Time, from the Original Pāli, of the First Book of the Abhidhamma-Piṭaka, entitled Dhamma-Sangaṇi (Compendium of States or Phenomena). Kessinger Publishing. .
• Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921-5). The Pali Text Society’s Pali–English dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. A general on-line search engine for the PED is available at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/.
• Soma Thera (1998) (6th rev. ed.). The Way of Mindfulness: The Satipatthana Sutta and Its Commentary. Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wayof.html.
• Sri Lanka Buddha Jayanti Tipitaka Series [SLTP] (undated). [in Pali] (MN 54). Available on-line at http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/2Majjhima-Nikaya/Majjhima2/054-potaliya-p.html.
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1997a). Sabbasava Sutta: All the Fermentations (MN 2). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html.
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1997). Samaññaphala Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life (DN 2). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.html.
• Thanissaro, Bhikkhu (trans.) (1997b). Sona Sutta: About Sona (AN 6.55). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.055.than.html.
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (2000). Sanyojana Sutta: Fetters (AN 10.13). http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.013.than.html.
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (2001). The Group of Ones § 15 (Iti. 1.15). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.1.001-027.than.html#iti-015.
• Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (2005). Tissa Sutta: Tissa (SN 22.84). Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.084.than.html.
• Upalavanna, Sister (trans.) (undated). To The Householder Potaliya (MN 54). Available on-line at https://web.archive.org/web/20101102225156/http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/2Majjhima-Nikaya/Majjhima2/054-potaliya-e1.html.
• Walshe, Maurice O'Connell (trans.) (1995). The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya. Somerville: Wisdom Publications. .

External links

• The Fetters of 'I', 'Mine', 'Myself'

Notes and References

1. These fetters are enumerated, for instance, in SN 45.179 and 45.180 (Bodhi, 2000, pp. 1565-66). This article's Pali words and English translations for the ten fetters are based on Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 656, "Saŋyojana" entry (retrieved 2008-04-09).
2. https://archive.today/20120707211711/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:2684.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), pp. 660-1, "Sakkāya" entry
3. https://archive.today/20120707163716/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:1406.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 615, "Vicikicchā" entry
4. See, for instance, Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 713, "Sīla" entry (retrieved 2008-04-09), regarding the similar concept of sīlabbatupādāna (= sīlabbata-upādāna), "grasping after works and rites." Bodhi (2000), p. 1565, SN 45.179, translates this term as "the distorted grasp of rules and vows"; Gethin (1998), p. 73, uses "clinging to precepts and vows"; Harvey (2007), p. 71, uses "grasping at precepts and vows"; Thanissaro (2000) uses "grasping at precepts & practices"; and, Walshe (1995), p. 26, uses "attachment to rites and rituals."
5. For a broad discussion of this term, see, e.g., Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), pp. 203-4, "Kāma" entry, and p. 274, "Chanda" entry (retrieved 2008-04-09). Bodhi (2000), p. 1565 (SN 45.179), Gethin (1998), p. 73, Harvey (2007), p. 71, Thanissaro (2000) and Walshe (1995), p. 26, translate kāmacchando as "sensual desire."
6. https://archive.today/20120707233819/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:2462.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 654, "Vyāpāda" entry
7. https://archive.today/20120712131456/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:565.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), pp. 574-5, "Rūpa" entry
8. https://archive.today/20120712131456/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:565.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), pp. 574-5, "Rūpa" entry
9. https://archive.today/20120711111223/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:3957.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 528, "Māna" entry
10. For a distinction between the first fetter, "personal identity view," and this eighth fetter, "conceit," see, e.g., SN 22.89 (trans., Thanissaro, 2001).
11. https://archive.today/20120713204220/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:3582.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 136, "Uddhacca" entry
12. https://archive.today/20120707234341/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:2303.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 85, "Avijjā" entry
13. For single-sutta references to both "higher fetters" and "lower fetters," see, DN 33 (section of fives) and AN 10.13. In other instances, a sutta regarding the lower fetters is followed by a sutta regarding the higher fetters, as in: SN 45.179 and 45.180; SN 46.129 and 46.130; SN 46.183 and 46.184; SN 47.103 and 47.104; SN 48.123 and 48.124; SN 49.53 and 49.54; SN 50.53 and 50.54; SN 51.85 and 51.86; SN 53.53 and 53.54; and, AN 9.67 and 9.70. In addition, the five lower fetters alone (without reference to the higher fetters) are discussed, e.g., in MN 64.
14. For the Sagīti Sutta's list of three fetters, see, e.g., Walshe (1995), p. 484. For the Dhammasai's list of three, see Rhys Davids (1900), pp. 256-61. Also see, Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 656, entry for "Saŋyojana" (retrieved 2008-04-09), regarding the tīi saŋyojanāni. (C.A.F. Rhys Davids (1900), p. 257, translates these three terms as: "the theory of individuality, perplexity, and the contagion of mere rule and ritual.")
15. See, e.g., MN 6 and MN 22.
16. https://archive.today/20120707234429/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:2509.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 656, "Saŋyojana" entry
17. Ñāamoli & Bodhi (2001), pp. 467-469, and Upalavanna (undated) . For a Romanized Pali transliteration, SLTP (undated).
18. https://archive.today/20120707211711/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:2684.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), pp. 660-1, "Sakkāya" entry
19. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html Thanissaro (1997a)
20. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.084.than.html Thanissaro (2005)
21. https://archive.today/20120707112213/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1:987.pali Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 597, "Vata (2)" entry
22. https://archive.today/20120801030825/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:1775.pali Ibid., p. 421, "Parāmāsa" entry
23. https://archive.today/20120718141541/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.4:1:236.pali Ibid., p. 713, "Sīla" entry regarding the suffix "bbata"
24. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.055.than.html Thanissaro (1997b)
25. For instance, see Gethin (1998), pp. 10-13, for a discussion of the Buddha in the context of the sramanic and brahmanic traditions.
26. & Bodhi (2001), pp. 537-41.
27. Bodhi (2000), p. 1148.
28. Bodhi (2000), p. 1148. Note that the referenced suttas (MN 64, SN 35.54 and SN 35.55) can be seen as overlapping and consistent if one, for instance, infers that one needs to use jhanic attainment and vipassana insight in order to "know and see" the impermanence and selfless nature of the sense bases, consciousness, contact and sensations. For a correspondence between impermanence and nonself, see Three marks of existence.
29. See, e.g., Bhikkhu Bodhi's introduction in Ñāamoli & Bodhi (2001), pp. 41-43. Bodhi in turn cites, for example, MN 6 and MN 22.
30. Gunaratana (2003), dhamma talk entitled "Dhamma [Satipatthana] - Ten Fetters."