Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Desire is produced by dwelling on desirable things in any of the three times, and it stops when you look at where they lead instead.
Where the three is
A reader looking for three items will not find them. The three here is the three times: things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present.
That is worth flagging because the Threes are usually a list of three things and this one is not. The triad is temporal, and it covers the whole field of what a mind can dwell on: what happened, what might happen, and what is going on.
The inclusion of past and future is the substance. Present desirable things are in front of you and their effect needs no explanation. The discourse says the mind produces desire just as effectively from something over and done with and from something that has not happened.
The mechanism
“In your heart you think about and consider things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present. When you do this, desire comes up, and you get attached to those things. This lust in the heart is what I call a fetter.”
Three steps. Thinking about and considering — anuvitakketi anuvicāreti, the same two verbs used for the mental movement in the first absorption, here running on the wrong material. Then desire arises. Then attachment.
And then the identification, which is the sharp part: this lust in the heart is what I call a fetter. Not the object, and not the pleasure. The canon is consistent about this and the collection has said it before — AN 3.68 located the cause of greed in irrational attention to a feature rather than in the feature itself.
It is worth pointing out that the mechanism is completely ordinary. Nobody is being described as doing anything unusual; going over an attractive thing in one’s mind is what minds do in idle moments, and the discourse says that is where the source is.
What stops it
The negative half is not the absence of thinking but a different object of attention: you understand the future result of things that stimulate desire and greed.
Āyatiṁ vipākaṁ — the result to come. So the instruction is not to stop considering the desirable thing but to consider it further, past the point where the attraction lives, to what it produces.
Then three consequences: you grow disillusioned, your heart becomes dispassionate, and you see it with penetrating wisdom. The first is nibbidā, the turning-away, and the sequence disillusionment → dispassion → seeing is the canon’s standard one.
The structure is worth naming for a class because it is the practical version of the three-term analysis of AN 3.103. Dwelling on the gratification produces desire; seeing the result — which is the drawback — produces the turning-away. This discourse is that analysis reduced to what a person actually does with their attention on a given afternoon.
Using it
This is the most immediately applicable discourse of the three called Sources and the instruction is a single move: when you catch yourself going over something attractive, do not stop — keep going, to what it leads to.
The reason that works, and the reason it is better advice than suppression, is in the verbs. The mind is already thinking about and considering; the instruction redirects an activity that is happening rather than trying to halt it. AN 3.101’s warning about a concentration held in place by force is the same point from the other end.
Key terms
The text
How desire comes up
§1“Mendicants, there are these three sources that give rise to deeds. What three? Desire comes up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present. And how does desire come up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present? In your heart you think about and consider things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present. When you do this, desire comes up, and you get attached to those things. This lust in the heart is what I call a fetter. That’s how desire comes up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present.
§3These are three sources that give rise to deeds.
And how it does not
§4There are these three sources that give rise to deeds. What three? Desire doesn’t come up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present.
§5–7And how does desire not come up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present? You understand the future result of things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present. When you know this, you grow disillusioned, your heart becomes dispassionate, and you see it with penetrating wisdom. That’s how desire doesn’t come up for things that stimulate desire and greed in the past, future, or present. These are three sources that give rise to deeds.”
Self-check quiz
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