Wrongful Conduct and Realm
Having catalogued the afflictions by name at exhaustive length, the treatise now returns to systematic analysis: the seventh gate asks precisely what each affliction gets wrong about its object, and the eighth gate maps every affliction across the three realms, matching each to the specific feelings and specific consciousnesses it can actually arise together with.
1. Wrongful Conduct: What Each Affliction Actually Misapprehends
何等邪行故？謂貪瞋二煩惱，迷境界及見起邪行。慢，迷有情及見起邪行。薩迦耶見、邊執見、邪見，迷所知境起邪行。見取、戒禁取，迷諸見起邪行。疑，迷對治起邪行。無明，迷一切起邪行。又十煩惱，皆迷苦集起諸邪行，是彼因緣所依處故。又十煩惱，皆迷滅道起諸邪行，由此能生彼怖畏故。
What is wrongful conduct? Craving and hatred both misapprehend an object and its associated view, giving rise to wrongful conduct on that basis. Conceit misapprehends a sentient being and its associated view, giving rise to wrongful conduct on that basis. The view of a substantial body, the extremist view, and wrong view misapprehend the knowable itself, giving rise to wrongful conduct. Clinging to views and clinging to rules and rituals misapprehend other views themselves, giving rise to wrongful conduct. Doubt misapprehends the antidote, giving rise to wrongful conduct. Delusion misapprehends everything whatsoever, giving rise to wrongful conduct.
Further, all ten afflictions misapprehend the truths of suffering and origination, giving rise to wrongful conduct with respect to both — since these two truths are the very cause, condition, and basis every affliction depends on. And all ten afflictions likewise misapprehend the truths of cessation and the path, giving rise to wrongful conduct with respect to both — since these two truths are precisely what gives rise to the afflictions' own dread.
This gate is worth reading as a precise map of exactly what each affliction gets wrong, rather than a vague claim that all afflictions are simply "confused." Craving and hatred each misread a specific object as more (or less) desirable than it genuinely is; conceit misreads one's own standing relative to other beings; the three self-related views misread the very nature of what is knowable, superimposing or denying a self where the true situation is otherwise; the two clinging afflictions misread other, already-mistaken views as themselves reliable; doubt specifically misreads the antidote — hesitating over whether the path to liberation actually works; and delusion, characteristically, gets everything wrong at once, since it is the root ignorance the other nine all ultimately depend on. The final point — that all ten afflictions equally dread the truths of cessation and the path — is a striking psychological observation: affliction is not merely indifferent to liberation, but actively recoils from it, since liberation is precisely what threatens affliction's own continued existence.
2. Realm: Where Each Affliction Belongs
何等界故？謂除瞋，餘一切通三界繫，瞋唯欲界繫。又貪，於欲界與樂、喜、捨相應。如於欲界，於初二靜慮亦爾，於第三靜慮與樂、捨相應，已上唯與捨相應。瞋與苦、憂、捨相應。
Which realm does each affliction belong to? Apart from hatred, every affliction extends across all three realms; hatred alone is bound solely to the desire realm.
Craving, in the desire realm, is associated with pleasure, joy, and equanimity. As in the desire realm, so too in the first and second dhyānas; in the third dhyāna, it is associated with pleasure and equanimity; above that, with equanimity alone. Hatred is associated with pain, distress, and equanimity.
慢，於欲界與喜、捨相應，於初二靜慮與樂、喜、捨相應，於第三靜慮與樂、捨相應，已上唯捨相應。如慢，薩迦耶見、邊執見、見取、戒禁取亦爾。邪見，於欲界與憂、喜、捨相應，於色無色界隨所有受皆與相應。疑，於欲界與憂捨相應，於色無色界隨所有受皆與相應。無明有二種，謂相應、不共。相應無明，一切煩惱相應故，若於是處隨所有受皆得相應。不共無明，於欲界與憂、捨相應，於上界隨所有受皆得相應。何故諸煩惱皆與捨相應？以一切煩惱墮中庸位方息沒故。
Conceit, in the desire realm, is associated with joy and equanimity; in the first and second dhyānas, with pleasure, joy, and equanimity; in the third dhyāna, with pleasure and equanimity; above that, with equanimity alone. As with conceit, so too the view of a substantial body, the extremist view, clinging to views, and clinging to rules and rituals. Wrong view, in the desire realm, is associated with distress, joy, and equanimity; in the form and formless realms, with whatever feeling happens to be present there. Doubt, in the desire realm, is associated with distress and equanimity; in the form and formless realms, with whatever feeling happens to be present there.
Delusion is of two kinds: associated delusion, and unshared delusion. Associated delusion, being associated with every affliction, is associated with whatever feeling is present wherever it occurs. Unshared delusion, in the desire realm, is associated with distress and equanimity; in the higher realms, with whatever feeling happens to be present there. Why are all afflictions associated with equanimity? Because every affliction, as it subsides, passes through a neutral, middling stage before finally coming to rest.
又貪，於欲界在六識身。如貪，瞋、無明亦爾。貪，於色界在四識身，於無色界在意識身。如貪，無明亦爾。慢、見疑，於一切處在意識身。又貪、瞋、慢，於欲界緣一分事轉；如於欲界，於色無色界亦爾。所餘煩惱，於一切處遍緣一切事轉。
Further, in the desire realm, craving is present across the six bodies of consciousness; so too are hatred and delusion. In the form realm, craving is present across four bodies of consciousness; in the formless realm, only in mental consciousness. Delusion is the same as craving in this respect. Conceit, view, and doubt, in every realm, are present only in mental consciousness. Further, craving, hatred, and conceit, in the desire realm, take only a partial range of objects; so too in the form and formless realms. Every remaining affliction, in every realm, takes the full range of every possible object.
Hatred's exclusive confinement to the desire realm is worth pausing on, since it explains something otherwise puzzling about higher meditative states: hatred specifically requires an unwanted, resistant object to react against, and beings in the form and formless realms, having already transcended the coarse aversive triggers of the desire realm, simply have nothing left within their own experience capable of provoking it — hatred is not suppressed there so much as structurally impossible. The gradual narrowing of associated feelings as one ascends through the dhyānas (from the full range of pleasure, joy, and equanimity down to equanimity alone by the higher stages) tracks the same progressive refinement already familiar from this treatise's cosmology: coarser feelings simply drop away as concentration deepens, leaving only the subtlest, most neutral tone behind. And the closing observation — that literally every affliction can be associated with equanimity — is a genuinely counter-intuitive point worth sitting with: even in a mental state that outwardly appears calm and neutral, an affliction can still be quietly present, simply because equanimity is the necessary transitional stage any affliction passes through as it winds down, not proof that no affliction remains.
Part 37 Complete
Wrongful conduct and realm — the seventh and eighth of the afflictions' ten gates — are now examined. Part 38 turns to the ninth and tenth gates: the two classes of afflictions sorted by whether they are abandoned through seeing or through cultivation (with the treatise's own precise count of one hundred twelve and sixteen respectively), and the treatise's own detailed account of how abandonment itself actually works.
Continue to Part 38 — The Two Classes, and How Abandonment Works →