Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast.

This is episode number 91.

I am your host, Noah Rochetta.

And today I'm talking about the Three Poisons.

Keep in mind that one does not need to become a Buddhist in order to benefit from Buddhist

teachings and concepts.

The goal of these ideas is to help you to befriend who you already are.

In a lot of classical Buddhist depictions of the Wheel of Samsara, some of you may have

seen this if you know the symbol of Buddhism is a wheel with eight spokes and the spokes

represent the eightfold path.

And often in the middle of this depiction it will show three different animals, usually

a pig, rooster and a snake.

And these three animals represent the three poisons.

So I wanted to talk about the three poisons.

This is a common teaching in Buddhism, the three poisons.

But I want to unravel this a little bit and talk a little bit about the words that

we use to describe this because poison, I don't know about you, but usually when I think

of poison, I'm thinking of something that you consume and it kills you.

I think most people would probably think, oh, well, this isn't, you know, I don't need

to be concerned about a poison in my life because I'm not dying.

I'm not dead.

So obviously I haven't had the poison.

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