What Are Habitual Obstructions and Afflictive Habitual Tendencies?

Afflictive hindrances are vexations pertaining to the mind's nature, corresponding to greed, hatred, and delusion; they obstruct one's path of spiritual practice. Habitual tendencies are the inertial forces accumulated by the mental faculty since beginningless kalpas. A fourth-stage Arhat can only eliminate the manifestations of the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, but cannot eradicate the inertia of habitual tendencies. Therefore, these habits may still surface inadvertently, yet they pass away very quickly, leaving no trace in the mind—anger or resentment does not linger for long.

Ordinary beings, however, fully manifest their afflictions. This manifests concretely as actions driven by greed, actions driven by hatred, actions driven by delusion, which are the direct expression and outflow of the afflictive nature of greed, hatred, and delusion within the mind. Habitual tendencies are like a vehicle continuing to move forward for a distance due to inertia after braking—it does not stop immediately. However, this force is relatively small. This "distance" represents the cultivation process from the first-ground bodhisattva to the eighth-ground bodhisattva. Before the first ground, it is the manifestation of afflictions; the afflictions are not yet fully severed. Before the third fruit (anāgāmin), before attaining the first dhyāna absorption, the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion are merely suppressed, not severed at all. Only after the first dhyāna does one gradually begin to sever afflictions.

Those who have neither realized the mind's nature nor attained any fruit, even if they cultivate the four dhyānas and eight samādhis, cannot sever afflictions—they merely suppress them. In the future, when their meditative concentration wanes, all afflictions will manifest again. Therefore, the merit of attaining the fruits (of enlightenment) and realizing the mind's nature is immense, enabling sentient beings to sever afflictions, transcend the suffering of birth and death, and attain great ease and liberation life after life.