Concept

Kleshas (Buddhism)

Overview

Kleshas (Sanskrit: क्लेश, romanized: kleśa; Pali: किलेस kilesa; Standard Tibetan: ཉོན་མོངས། nyon mongs, Chinese: 煩惱 fánnǎo, Japanese: 煩悩 bonnō), in Buddhism, are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, etc. Contemporary translators use a variety of English words to translate the term kleshas, such as: afflictions, defilements, destructive emotions, disturbing emotions, negative emotions, mind poisons, and neuroses.

Currently in the Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist traditions, the three kleshas of ignorance, attachment, and aversion are identified as the root or source of all other kleshas. These are referred to as the three poisons in the Mahayana tradition, or as the three unwholesome roots in the Theravada tradition.

While the early Buddhist texts of the Pali Canon do not specifically enumerate the three root kleshas, the three poisons (and the kleshas generally) came to be seen as the very roots of samsaric existence.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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And as we naturally desire good things, so in like manner we naturally seek to avoid what is evil; and this avoidance of which, if conducted in accordance with reason, is called caution; and this the wise man alone is supposed to have: but that caution which is not under the guidance of reason, but is attended with a base and low dejection, is called fear. Fear is, therefore, caution destitute of reason.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth
States what Kleshas is.
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Melancholy Dejection, subjects a man to causelesse fears; which is a Madnesse commonly called MELANCHOLY, apparent also in divers manners; as in haunting of solitudes, and graves; in superstitious behaviour; and in fearing some one, some another particular thing. In summe, all Passions that produce strange and unusuall behaviour, are called by the generall name of Madnesse. But of the severall kinds of Madnesse, he…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
States what Kleshas is.
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The mechanism of their production, both in the body itself and in what is called outward nature, is all that can with any propriety be classed as physical.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Kleshas is.
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Philosophers who discussed Kleshas (Buddhism)

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Shinran

Place in the tradition

Part of Buddhist philosophy.

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