Fetter (Buddhism)


In Buddhism, a mental fetter, chain or bond shackles a sentient being to saṃsāra, the cycle of lives with dukkha. By cutting through all fetters, one attains nibbāna.

Fetter of suffering

Throughout the Pali canon, the word "fetter" is used to describe an intrapsychic phenomenon that ties one to suffering. For example, in the Itivuttaka, the Buddha says:
Elsewhere, the suffering caused by a fetter is implied as in this more technical discourse from Samyutta Nikaya 35.232, where Ven. Sariputta converses with Ven. Kotthita:

Lists of fetters

The fetters are enumerated in different ways in the Pali canon's Sutta Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka.

Sutta Pitaka's list of ten fetters

The Pali canon's Sutta Pitaka identifies ten "fetters of becoming":
  1. belief in a self
  2. doubt or uncertainty, especially about the Buddha's awakeness
  3. attachment to rites and rituals
  4. sensual desire
  5. ill will
  6. lust for material existence, lust for material rebirth
  7. lust for immaterial existence, lust for rebirth in a formless realm
  8. conceit
  9. restlessness
  10. ignorance
As indicated in the adjacent table, throughout the Sutta Pitaka, the first five fetters are referred to as "lower fetters" and are eradicated upon becoming a non-returner; and, the last five fetters are referred to as "higher fetters", eradicated by an arahant.

Three fetters

Both the Sagīti Sutta and the Dhammasai refer to the "three fetters" as the first three in the aforementioned Sutta Pitaka list of ten:
  1. belief in a self
  2. doubt
  3. attachment to rites and rituals
According to the Canon, these three fetters are eradicated by stream-enterers and once-returners.

Abhidhamma Pitaka's list of ten fetters

The Abhidhamma Pitaka's Dhamma Sangani provides an alternate list of ten fetters, also found in the Khuddaka Nikaya's Culla Niddesa and in post-canonical commentaries. This enumeration is:
  1. sensual lust
  2. anger
  3. conceit
  4. views
  5. doubt
  6. attachment to rites and rituals
  7. lust for existence
  8. jealousy
  9. greed
  10. ignorance.
The commentary mentions that views, doubt, attachment to rites and rituals, jealousy and greed are thrown off at the first stage of Awakening ; gross sensual lust and anger by the second stage and even subtle forms of the same by the third stage ; and conceit, lust for existence and ignorance by the fourth and final stage.

Fetters related to householder affairs

Uniquely, the Sutta Pitaka's "Householder Potaliya" Sutta, identifies eight fetters whose abandonment "lead to the cutting off of affairs" :
  1. destroying life
  2. stealing
  3. false speech
  4. slandering
  5. coveting and greed
  6. aversion
  7. anger and malice
  8. conceit

    Individual fetters

The following fetters are the first three mentioned in the Sutta Pitaka's list of ten fetters, as well as the Sagīti Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitaka's list of "three fetters". As indicated below, eradication of these three fetters is a canonical indicator of one's being irreversibly established on the path to Enlightenment.

Identity view (sakkāya-dihi)

Etymologically, kāya means "body," sakkāya means "existing body," and means "view".
In general, "belief in an individual self" or, more simply, "self view" refers to a "belief that in one or other of the khandhas there is a permanent entity, an attā."
Similarly, in MN 2, the Sabbasava Sutta, the Buddha describes "a fetter of views" in the following manner:

Doubt (vicikicchā)

In general, "doubt" refers to doubt about the Buddha's teachings, the Dhamma.
More specifically, in SN 22.84, the Tissa Sutta, the Buddha explicitly cautions against uncertainty regarding the Noble Eightfold Path, which is described as the right path to Nibbana, leading one past ignorance, sensual desire, anger and despair.

Attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāso)

Śīla refers to "moral conduct", vata to "religious duty, observance, rite, practice, custom," and parāmāsa to "being attached to" or "a contagion" and has the connotation of "mishandling" the Dhamma. Altogether, sīlabbata-parāmāso has been translated as "the contagion of mere rule and ritual, the infatuation of good works, the delusion that they suffice" or, more simply, "fall back on attachment to precepts and rules."
While the fetter of doubt can be seen as pertaining to the teachings of competing samana during the times of the Buddha, this fetter regarding rites and rituals likely refers to some practices of contemporary brahmanic authorities.

Cutting through the fetters

In MN 64, the "Greater Discourse to Mālunkyāputta," the Buddha states that the path to abandoning the five lower fetters is through using jhana attainment and vipassana insights in tandem. In SN 35.54, "Abandoning the Fetters," the Buddha states that one abandons the fetters "when one knows and sees... as impermanent" the twelve sense bases, the associated six sense-consciousness, and the resultant contact and sensations. Similarly, in SN 35.55, "Uprooting the Fetters," the Buddha states that one uproots the fetters "when one knows and sees... as nonself" the sense bases, sense consciousness, contact and sensations.
The Pali canon traditionally describes cutting through the fetters in four stages:
  • one cuts the first three fetters to be a "stream enterer" ;
  • one cuts the first three fetters and significantly weakens the next two fetters to be a "once returner" ;
  • one cuts the first five fetters to be a "non-returner" ;
  • one cuts all ten fetters to be an arahant.

    Relationship to other core concepts

Similar Buddhist concepts found throughout the Pali Canon include the five hindrances and the ten defilements. Comparatively speaking, in the Theravada tradition, fetters span multiple lifetimes and are difficult to remove, while hindrances are transitory obstacles. Defilements encompass all mental defilements including both fetters and hindrances.