The three poisons or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: akuśala-mūla; Pāli: akusala-mūla), in Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, refer to the three root kleshas of ignorance, attachment, and aversion. These three poisons are considered to be the cause of all suffering.

Brief description

In the Buddhist teachings, the three poisons (of ignorance, attachment, and aversion) are the primary causes that keep sentient beings trapped in samsara. As shown in the bhavacakra

Bhavacakra

The bhavacakra is a symbolic representation of samsara found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibet region...

, the three poisons lead to the creation of karma, which leads to rebirth in the six realms of samsara. Of these three, ignorance is the root poison. From ignorance, attachment and aversion arise.

Jeffrey Hopkins states:

[It is] ignorance that drives the entire process... [Ignorance] isn't just an inability to apprehend the truth but an active misapprehension of the status of oneself and all other objects—one's own mind or body, other people, and so forth. It is the conception or assumption that phenomena exist in a far more concrete way than they actually do.

Based on this misapprehension of the status of persons and things, we are drawn into afflictive desire and hatred [i.e. attachment and aversion]... Not knowing the real nature of phenomena, we are driven to generate desire for what we like and hatred for what we do not like and for what blocks our desires. These three—ignorance, desire, and hatred—are called the three poisons; they pervert our mental outlook.

Ringu Tulku states:

In the Buddhist sense, ignorance is equivalent to the identification of a self as being separate from everything else. It consists of the belief that there is an "I" that is not part of anything else. On this basis we think, "I am one and unique. Everything else is not me. It is something different."...

From this identification stems the dualistic view, since once there is an "I," there are also "others." Up to here is "me." The rest is "they." As soon as this split is made, it creates two opposite ways of reaction: "This is nice, I want it!" and "This is not nice, I do not want it!" ...

On the one hand there are those things that seem to threaten or undermine us. Maybe they will harm us or take away our identity. They are a danger to our security. Due to this way of thinking, aversion comes up... Then on the other hand there are those things that are so nice. We think, "I want them. I want them so much..." Through this way of thinking...attachment arises.

The three poisons are represented in the hub of the bhavacakra

Bhavacakra

The bhavacakra is a symbolic representation of samsara found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibet region...

 as a pig, a bird, and a snake (representing ignorance, attachment, and aversion, respectively).

Sanskrit/Pali/Tibetan terms and translations

The Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan terms for each of the three poisons are as follows:

Poison	Sanskrit	Pali	Tibetan	Alternate English translations	Skt./Pali/Tib. Synonym
Ignorance	moha	moha	gti mug	confusion, bewilderment, delusion	avidyā Avidya (Buddhism) Avidyā or avijjā means "ignorance" or "delusion" and is the opposite of 'vidyā' and 'rig pa'...   (Skt.); avijjā (Pāli); ma rigpa (Tib.)
Attachment	rāga	lobha	'dod chags	greed, desire	n/a
Aversion	dveṣa	dosa	zhe sdang	anger, hatred	n/a

Relation to other kleshas

These three poisons are said to be the root of all of the other kleshas.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche states:

The conditioning factors [kleshas] are often referred to in Buddhist terms as “mental afflictions,” or sometimes “poisons.” Although the texts of Buddhist psychology examine a wide range of conditioning factors, all of them agree in identifying three primary afflictions that form the basis of all other factors that inhibit our ability to see things as they really are: ignorance, attachment, and aversion.

Relation to physical illness

In Tibetan medicine

Traditional Tibetan medicine

Traditional Tibetan medicine is a centuries-old traditional medical system that employs a complex approach to diagnosis, incorporating techniques such as pulse analysis and urinalysis, and utilizes behavior and dietary modification, medicines composed of natural materials and physical therapies...

, it is believed that the three poisons are the cause of physical, as well as mental, illness.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is a teacher of the Bon Tibetan religious tradition. He is founder and director of the Ligmincha Institute and several centers named Chamma Ling, organizations dedicated to the study and practice of the teachings of the Bon tradition.-Life:Tenzin Wangyal's parents fled the...

 states:

Ancient tradition believes that the three root poisons are not only the causes of all suffering but also the causes of disease as well.

It is believed that the three poisons obscure the flow of the energetic wind (Tib. lung

Lung (Tibetan Buddhism)

Lung is a word that means wind or breath. It is a key concept in the Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and as such is part of the symbolic 'twilight language', used to non-conceptually point to a variety of meanings. Lung is a concept that's particularly important to understandings of the...

) through three main subtle energy channels within the body.

Relation to Western psychology

The three poisons have been compared to the Western psychological concepts of narcissism, desire, and anger.

Mark Epstein

Mark Epstein

Mark Epstein, M.D. , is an American psychiatrist who has written extensively about Buddhism and psychotherapy. Epstein is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Medical School. He has been a practicing Buddhist since his early twenties, primarily as a student of Joseph Goldstein and Jack...

states:

The first wave of psychoanalysis, the classical period of Freud and his followers that extended into the 1950s, was primarily concerned with uncovering repressed desire and anger, or Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts, which in some way correspond to the Buddhist [concepts of attachment and aversion]. The next wave, of object relations and narcissism that has dominated the past thirty years, exposed the gap within: the emptiness, inauthenticity, or alienation that results from estrangement from our true selves and our confusion or ignorance about our own true natures. In the Buddhist view, this is the black hog of delusion [i.e. ignorance], the root or precondition of greed and hatred.