How did we get into this mess in the first place?

Frustratingly, Buddhism doesn’t offer many answers to the obvious question, why are we not already enlightened? How did we come to be so painfully separated from reality?

The teachings on the fetters offer us one answer to that question.

The 10 Fetters are ten illusions or beliefs that keep us from being free. We started, where we must start, with the first fetter of self-view. Releasing the first fetter, our belief in a separate self, is akin to getting our hands untied. It’s the first step on the way to being free.

But there’s a whole other way of looking at the fetters, one where self-view, rather than coming first, is ‘the cherry on the cake’. The final and finishing touch to a process that started way back with the 10th fetter of ignorance.

Kevin Schanilec describes what we are doing when we work on the fetters as ‘retracing our steps’. All the inspiration for this post and this approach to the fetters comes from him.

Let’s look at how we got into this bind in the first place. It all starts with ignorance.

10th Fetter - Ignorance

Ignorance is the fundamental problem as far as Buddhism is concerned. In the past, I’ve thought of it as our ‘original sin’. Yet, in the same way that there is no essential self, there is no essential ignorance.

Ignorance isn’t something we have or are. Ignorance is simply us ignoring things. The Sanskrit term is ‘avidya’, not-knowing.

What is it we don’t know? What are we ignoring?

We are ignoring the truth. More specifically, the truth of the 3 lakshanas. We are looking for permanence, substance and satisfaction. We’re ignoring the fact that they can’t be found. (see footnotes)

How many years have you been alive and searching? For me, it’s 56. That’s how long I’ve been gathering evidence that permanence, substance and satisfaction are impossible to find.

Yet still I think there’s a way, surely! How about a cruise, somewhere hot, with a whole new wardrobe? Or, if that doesn’t work, I could get up an hour earlier, keeping a gratitude journal and eating brown rice.

9th Fetter - Restlessness

With ignorance, we are trying to ignore the truth. How does that feel? Pretty uncomfortable. Several feelings come to mind, disquiet, antsy, in a word - restless.

The 9th fetter of ‘restlessness’ is sometimes called ‘compensation’. I had to think about that for a while. What came to mind was the experience of having a conversation with someone who’s silent and shy. I’ll automatically compensate for what’s not happening on their side.

With this fetter, there’s the desire to compensate for what’s missing. And what’s missing is permanence, substance and satisfaction.

8th Fetter - I exist / I am

If restlessness is the urge to compensate, then the 8th fetter is where we start the project of compensating for what’s not there by fabricating it instead. If we can’t find the kind of reality we are longing for, then we’ll just make it up.

The first thing we fabricate is a sense of ‘me’. Not the specific ‘me’ of the first fetter but a very basic sense of a ‘me in here’.

This is the first instance of identification. We are identifying with, or as, experience. Often when we are told there is no me, we turn towards the very experience of experiencing, which is always there and undeniably real. At the most basic level, that seems to be me. So we identify with, or as, that.

7th Fetter - The Formless Realm

If there’s going to be a ‘me in here’, then there must also be a ‘world out there’. We’re going to have to fabricate that too. Otherwise, we’ll not be able to maintain the illusion of ‘me’ that is the 8th fetter.

For something to exist, it’s going to have to exist at a point in time, or even through time, with a past and future. So we’d better create the notion of time. That time is a function of the mind is beautifully explored by Carlo Rovelli.

Next, we’ll need to be located somewhere so we need a sense of space, direction and location. It’s fascinating to explore this in meditation. You can notice yourself adding in the idea of ‘location’ to sensations that are simply ‘floating in space’.

6th Fetter - The Realm of Form

Now we have a sense of ‘me in here’ and the basic notions of time and space. We then start to create discreet objects ‘out there’, cementing the sense of ourselves as a subject. Here’s where we add in all the divisions and boundaries.

Not just material objects, but anything we ‘carve out’ of experience and give form as a ‘thing’. That includes sadness, a banana, home and a memory of being in France. Anything can be something!

We have now fully separated out ourselves from the rest of existence.

These higher fetters prepare the ground for the lower fetters

The higher fetters are sometimes called the external fetters as they are about our illusions of an external world. Next, we come to the lower fetters, which are confusions about our inner world. We’ve already started exploring these in previous posts such as The first three fetters and A simple explanation of not-self.

With a ‘me in here’ and a ‘world out there’, we have the sense of things we want and things we don’t want, a basic sense of pleasant and unpleasant, of push and pull. This is the basis of the 4th and 5th fetter of desire and ill-will.

As we identify with the things we like and push away the things we don’t, we start to create a life of rites, rituals and routines and with it a sense of identity. The 3rd fetter, dependence on rites and rituals.

Having invested so much in fabricating all of this, we can’t risk having it destroyed by coming into contact with the truth, the truth of the laksanas.

We now rely on the 2nd fetter, the fetter of doubt, to keep the truth at bay. Even when we meet the Dharma and hear the teachings, doubt allows us to turn away from them. This can take many forms, from feeling perplexed to simply not liking what the teachings have to tell us.

With our identity bolstering our sense of self and doubt protecting it, we’ve come to the ‘cherry on the cake’, the finishing touch to the project of fabricating a ‘me’, the 1st fetter, self-view.

Here I am, separate from everything else, at the centre of it all.

“The ‘moat of ignorance’ is complete.”

- Kevin Schanilec

I’ve found it incredibly helpful to understand how each of these illusions or beliefs has arisen dependent on the previous belief. That restlessness comes out of my ignoring the truth, fabricating a ‘me’ comes out of restlessness and so on.

To see how, when I work with the fetters, I’m not trying to reach some distant goal but to literally ‘retrace my steps’.

For me, this has been such a helpful model of looking at the path, but like all models or metaphors, it’s best not to take it literally. Instead, we can ask what does this way of looking at the path show me?

I’m curious if it shows you something new too. Let me know in the comments.

FOOTNOTE: THE LAKSHANAS

Permanence: The lakshana of impermanence, anitya. We are looking for permanence but things don’t last in the way we think they will.

Substance: The lakshana of insubstantiality, sunyata. We are looking for substance but things don’t turn out to be what we thought they were. Our idea of the holiday, the relationship or the sandwich, isn’t what the experience turns out to be.

Satisfaction: The lakshana of unsatisfactoriness, dukkha. We are looking for satisfaction but things don’t give us what we think they will.

Why are we not already Enlightened?