Kleshas: The Inner Enemies

The kleshas are what we know as the five poisons of attachment, ignorance, hatred, pride and jealousy. We fall under their influence through our lack of awareness. We all want to be happy yet we suffer, and it’s due to the afflictive emotions. We have faith in our afflictive emotions and consequently we become their servants; they are the main driving force that propels us into suffering. We need to stop having faith in them and to stop serving them. Throughout previous and future lives, and even from a young age we have been in a state of ignorance because we are following after afflictive emotions which continue because of our belief in a self. These are the root of our suffering and if we continue to follow them we will continue to be under their power; the causes and conditions for experiencing suffering will be in place.

There are many ways we can work with these emotions and change our situation. We can analyze the afflictions, transform them, learn to give them up so that they don’t become the cause of future suffering. 

We have the concept of an “enemy”, something or someone who causes us harm. Someone who disrupts our wishes, who prevents us from moving forward. We often believe that this enemy is external to ourselves, and that we need to do something to stop this enemy. But no matter how many external enemies we defeat, others will pop up. We are never able to defeat them all.  But through close and careful investigation, we find that the enemy is not outside ourselves -- the enemy is inside, it’s our afflictive emotions, and we will find that the root of afflictive emotions is ignorance. When an army wages a war, it needs to reach past the entourage to the king; similarly we need to reach the root of suffering and afflictive emotions which is ignorance. 

The internal enemies, the afflictive emotions, are much less predictable than outer enemies; they are much more difficult to understand and recognize.  For example, we can easily imagine how external enemies cause fear – they crush our dreams, take our lives, cause us harm in this life. But are they able to follow us from one life to the next? No, they cannot. However, the kleshas are inside us. They will follow us into the six realms of existence and bring us great trouble. They're in our minds throughout our lifetimes in cyclic existence. 

Unlike external enemies, internal enemies are always with us. The afflictive emotions stay with us when we're eating, sleeping, walking -- whatever we're doing, they are with us. In this way they are our constant companion. This is much more terrifying than an enemy with a known location outside of ourselves.

Furthermore, the external enemies are easily recognized, we can see what they are doing. But the internal enemies can appear gentle, soft and kind until there is a negative result that will cause suffering and pain. They are much more deceptive than external enemies. We can easily recognize and know an external enemy; we know that they are enemies and we don’t accept them. The afflictive emotions can exert a negative influence on us in a more complete and full way simply because they are more difficult to know. The cause of suffering in this case is in the very fact that we do not know them. The source is marigpa, lack of awareness, and it is from marigpa that the emotions are able to cause us harm. We don't recognize the internal enemies, and we have even come to accept them as the usual way of doing things, the everyday reality.

Many of us have not begun to look for the source of afflictive emotions, so our minds are in a state of ignorance. This enemy stays with us for many eons. It follows us from lifetime to lifetime. It brings us great difficulty in cyclic existence. We remain in the process of karma, cause and effect, which has lack of awareness at its very source. We continually plant the seeds of suffering which we don’t think will ripen, but then they do ripen. We experience great suffering in our environment, in our world, in the places that we live in, and we develop the idea of external enemies. We see ourselves as separate from sentient beings, when in fact we are all under the influence of afflictive emotions. What we need to do is find the source of our afflictive emotions and thus come to understand their nature. 

So how do we fight the afflictive emotions? It is through compassion endowed in wisdom. That's what compassion really is, it's to see suffering. When we see an enemy come to our presence, normally we have the urge to fight. But through compassion, we can understand hatred to be like a sickness. We can see that our enemies are following after a feeling without awareness, and understand that they would rather not be acting the way that they are. 

It's so difficult to get rid of the external enemies. But although the internal enemies can follow us through many lifetimes, they always accompany us and they're very deceptive, they are also very easy to defeat. External enemies pop up again and again, but once we identify the afflictive emotions as the enemy and we treat them with wisdom and compassion, then right then and there we can defeat the enemy. The enemy is taken care of.

Our approach is to first recognize afflictive emotions and then understand their essence. Right then and there, we can liberate the afflictive emotions. If somebody says unkind words to us, we can respond with compassion. We can look at our own reaction and instead of responding right away, we can look at the essence of our anger, we can slow things down and ask ourselves, "Did I do something wrong?” Even if we didn't do something wrong, we can recognize the powerful influence of a very strong emotion that has taken hold of someone else. 

It's much easier to work with the internal negative emotions, those enemies, rather than those we meet outside, those external to us. When we encounter somebody who upsets us, we shouldn’t try to solve the problem by looking at the external situation but instead looking at the feeling that arises inside ourselves, and looking with the eyes of wisdom. If somebody says something to us and we have a strong reaction, that reaction is something we can feel. We can sit with that feeling and ask ourselves, “What is this feeling like? What is its color, shape? Where is this feeling that is arising inside of us?” Look closely and look with the eyes of wisdom. We will find that we can't really find much about it. We can't say, "This is the way it is." We can't find its location. We can't find anything substantial anywhere. There's nothing there. 

When we realize this, then the feeling has stopped. It's not there anymore. On the spot, it is taken care of, it is resolved through looking at its nature with the eyes of wisdom. It resolves itself and we do this again and again as feelings come up, as strong emotions arise. Again and again we look at their nature, we try to find where they are, we try to look directly and we find there isn't anything we can point a finger at. This is where we find the resolution. 

Most of us do not look into the emotions, the kleshas. We blindly follow feelings and fears that multiply and create ingrained habitual tendencies. Instead, we need to look into the afflictive emotions with the eyes of wisdom. When we do, we see the nature of mind and of negative emotions – we see their nature is wisdom. Even negative emotions have the nature of wisdom. 

At the root of the kleshas is not knowing the nature of our minds. It is through unknowing that all kinds of afflictive emotions are able to gather strength and proliferate. Rather than putting so much effort into understanding the material world and those things external to us, we should come to an understanding of the nature of our own minds, and to gain a taste of this through our own practice. 

~ Chakung Jigme Wangdrak Rinpoche, January 27, 2024