Through the 10 fetters to awakening

The concept of the ten fetters is one of the Buddha’s discoveries. He called them Samyojana – a word from the ancient Pali language that means fetter. You can find them in the Pali Canon, the earliest preserved discourses of the historical Buddha.

I was never a particularly well-read Buddhist. And at the Buddhist center where I used to meditate, I never heard of the ten fetters. So we don’t need to be Buddhists to work with them.
And afterwards, we won’t be anyway.

I don’t want to bore you with theory – partly because I don’t know much about it, and partly because this isn’t about theory.
The path through the ten fetters is a practical one. And practical means: active.

What Are the 10 Fetters?

You could also call them illusions, assumptions, beliefs, or views – ideas we take to be true.

We simply assume that we are what we think we are and that reality is what we think it is, and we go from there. We accept these facts as fixed and certain and move on from that point. Thus the fundamental error from which all others are derived has already been made and is immune from being discovered and corrected.

Jed McKenna

Seeing through these illusions is one long dis-illusionment – a sobering, as the Pali Canon puts it.
It’s an awakening from the idea of being someone.

The 10 Fetters at a Glance

1. The Illusion of Self – The assumption that body, mind and consciousness form a me.

2. Skeptical Doubt – The belief that we can doubt the truth.

3. Attachment to Rules and Rituals – The idea that liberation could be achieved through religious or spiritual practices.

4 & 5. Desire and Aversion – The assumption that we can control how things unfold.

6. Subjectivity – The belief that we perceive something outside of ourselves.

7. Perception – The assumption that perception is our own ability.

8. The Sense of Being – The belief that the feeling I am is real.

9. Restlessness – The search for something lasting.

10. Ignorance – The unwillingness to see the truth.

How the 10 Fetters Are seen through

Reading about the fetters or trying to understand them won’t dissolve them.
They need to be seen through – literally.

To do that, we use only the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting.
Nothing else is needed.

It’s about discovering what is real – what can actually be experienced – and what is merely added by thought.
Because we’re so used to thinking about everything, the hardest part is often not to think.

This exploration with the senses is called Direct Experience.
If you’re new to it, you can find an introduction here.

The Shortest Instruction

It comes from the Buddha himself – to the monk Bahiya:

Bahiya, you will recognise this:

In the seen, there will simply be the seen

In the heard there will be only the heard

In the thought there will simply be the thought

In the cognised there will simply be the cognised;

In all this you will not be seen, heard, thought or cognised.

If you are not seen, heard, thought or cognised, you are not there.

If you are not there, you do not exist, there or elsewhere.

This is the end of suffering.

Buddha

What Remains After Awakening?

After all ten fetters have been seen through, awakening is here.
A tricky word, perhaps – but still the right one.

It feels like being unwrapped.
Light.
Everything heavy, everything unnecessary has fallen away.
And at the same time, everything feels completely ordinary –
as if the work were done.

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How to Begin

If this speaks to you, there are a few simple ways to start:

• Read the article about the Illusion of Self – the first fetter.
• Join the Open Group if you’d like to explore together.
• Or get in touch with me if you’d like to be guided directly.