I. What This Concept Is Saying
If someone tells you "I have afflictions," you will likely picture something concrete: anxiety, anger, resentment, attachment, addiction. But Buddhism has made a very fine-grained classification of "afflictions," and the oldest, most crucial cut among them is called 見思惑 (darśana-śruta-kleśa, delusions of views and of thought). It is not one particular affliction, but rather the collective term for dividing all afflictions that keep sentient beings trapped in saṃsāra within the three realms (欲界 kāmadhātu, the desire realm; 色界 rūpadhātu, the form realm; 無色界 ārūpyadhātu, the formless realm) into two great categories.
The famous passage in the *摩訶止觀 (Mohe zhiguan, The Great Calming and Contemplation)* puts it precisely: "見則見理，見實非惑。見理時能斷此惑；從解得名，名為見惑耳" — the view-delusion (*見惑, darśana-kleśa*) is called "view" not because seeing itself is wrong, but because it obstructs one from seeing principle (*理*); it is named after the wisdom that can cut it off, namely the "wisdom that sees principle." *"Views are for seeing principle; the seeing itself is not delusion. When one sees principle, one can cut off this delusion; named from the liberation it achieves, it is called view-delusion."* Zhiyi (智顗) uses two metaphors to describe where view-delusion sits: "如炎依空，而动乱于空；似梦因眠，梦昏于眠" — *"Like a flame that depends on space yet agitates space; like a dream that arises from sleep yet bedims sleep."* View-delusion is precisely this kind of cognitive disorder that "attaches to the contemplating mind and in turn disturbs that mind."
Taken together, 見思惑 is the sum of two categories of afflictions:
The first category — 見惑 (view-delusions, also written 見諦惑, delusions of views regarding the truths) : erroneous cognitive frameworks attached to perception. In the *摩訶止觀*, Zhiyi subdivides these into four groups — "single four views, doubled four views, complete four views, and wordless views" (單四見、復四見、具足四見、無言見, roughly eight erroneous views in total) — and organizes them through the 十使 (daśa-anuśaya, ten bonds/emissaries) (the five sharp ones: 我見 view of self, 邊見 extreme views, 邪見 wrong views, 戒取 clinging to precepts, 見取 clinging to views; the five dull ones: 恚 hatred, 慢 arrogance, 癡 delusion, 愛 craving, 疑 doubt) matched against the four noble truths: in the desire realm, under the four truths, there are altogether thirty-two bonds (ten under the truth of suffering, seven under origination, eight under the path, seven under cessation); in the form realm, under the four truths, altogether twenty-eight bonds. This is the "internal structure" of view-delusion — far more complex than "I have a few biases." It is an entire solidified set of judgments about self, world, causality, and liberation.
**The second category — 思惑 (thought-delusions / delusions of thought, also *śrutānuśaya*) : affective inertia attached to habitual tendencies. Zhiyi counts them through the scheme of three realms, nine grounds, nine grades per ground (三界九地、每地九品), totaling eighty-one grades**: nine grades in the desire realm (the nine depths of craving, aversion, delusion, arrogance, doubt, view of self, extreme views, wrong views, and clinging to views as present in the desire realm), nine grades each in the four grounds of the form realm, and nine grades each in the four grounds of the formless realm. Thought-delusion is not a single emotion but the degree to which a certain type of emotion has become "habitualized" — it can be divided into eighty-one layers from shallowest to deepest.
Combining these two categories, the special status of 見思惑 lies in this: **when view-and-thought delusions are completely cut off, one leaves the three realms' segmental birth-and-death (分段生死, *paryāya-janma-maraṇa*)**. The *妙法蓮華經玄義 (Miaofa lianhua jing xuanyi, The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra)* correlates the five flavors of nirvāṇa with the five stages of the Tripiṭaka (Hīnayāna) path, drawing this trajectory very clearly — the *srotāpanna* (須陀洹, stream-enterer, first fruit) "breaks views," passing from ordinary to noble, like milk turning into curd; the *sakṛdāgāmin* (斯陀含, once-returner, second fruit) "erodes six grades of thought-delusion," like raw cream (*生酥*); the *anāgāmin* (阿那含, never-returner, third fruit) "exhausts desire-realm thought-delusions," like cooked cream (*熟酥*); the *arhat* (阿羅漢, including *pratyekabuddha* and even the Tripiṭaka Buddha) "cuts off both views and thought in the three realms," like ghee (*醍醐*) — "In thirty-four minds, views and thought are both cut off, and one is vastly and suddenly enlightened" (三十四心、見思俱斷，朗然大悟) (T1716, T1716, *juan* 10).
But the *玄義* immediately cautions: cutting off views-and-thought is not the ultimate end. What the Lesser Vehicle attains is still "dwelling in a grass hut, not the ultimate principle" (住草庵，非究竟理); its power of merit is thin, and it does not seek Buddhahood (功德力薄，不求作佛). There remain the dust-and-sand delusions (塵沙惑), the immeasurable afflictions that obstruct the guidance of sentient beings, and the ignorance-delusion (無明惑), the subtlest affliction, still unbroken. Thus, view-and-thought delusions are the first deep gate on the path of liberation — not the final one.
A Detail Often Overlooked
The *摩訶止觀* also contains a passage worth reading repeatedly: "見是慧性，難忘，易發。隔世所習之見，因止觀再發……養見研心，前驅開導……若入二乘，則動見修道品；若入大乘，不動見修道品。" *"Views are of the nature of wisdom; hard to forget, easy to arise. Views practiced in past lives re-arise through calming-and-contemplation... Nurturing views and refining the mind, they lead the way... If one enters the Two Vehicles, views move the cultivation of the path; if one enters the Great Vehicle, views do not move the cultivation of the path."* In other words, "views" (*見*) are not inherently bad — they originally carry the nature of wisdom; it is only when attached to that they become delusion. If the practitioner can recognize their "erroneous characteristics," erroneous views can even be transformed into aids for the path. This point is especially important for contemporary people: many assume that "breaking views" means shattering opinions and dismantling beliefs. It does not — it means loosening the "solidified self-grasping" within views, allowing views to once again become a vehicle for wisdom.
II. A Walkthrough in Everyday Life
If you previously understood 見思惑 as "thoughts + emotions," the following table will show you that the classical definition is far more than that. When you map these two categories of affliction onto contemporary life according to the classical definitions, you will find they are like two invisible hands — one resting on the cognitive layer, one on the habitual layer — working together to keep a person stuck in place.
A. A Contemporary Walkthrough of View-Delusions (Solidified Cognitive Frameworks)
View-delusion is not a single thought, but an entire cognitive framework that has become the default premise. It has several notable features:
1. Absolutization — sentences beginning with "must," "always," "only"; 2. Dichotomization — dividing people and things into two mutually exclusive boxes: "right/wrong," "good/bad," "success/failure"; 3. Egocentrism — evaluating everything with "I" as the coordinate system.
Commuting scenario: You are stuck in traffic, and your mind automatically starts running this sentence: "My time has been stolen; this should not have happened." — This is not a factual judgment (that you are stuck is a fact); this is a view. Embedded in this "view" are several self-grasping premises: "I should be given special treatment," "the world should cooperate with me," "being delayed is being deprived." It prevents you from simply being stuck — instead you are stuck *and angry*.
Phone-scrolling scenario: You come across an opinion, and your reflexive reaction is "Well said! / This person is completely wrong!" — not a judgment based on evidence, but a judgment based on view-driven camp affiliation. This "camp" itself is a kind of extreme view (邊見, *antagrāha-dṛṣṭi* — clinging to one side while discarding the other), which is one type of view-delusion.
Intimate-relationship scenario: In your mind, there is a script of "what an intimate relationship should look like" (a partner should understand me / we shouldn't argue / they should respond promptly / the other person should...). When the other person doesn't follow the script, what you feel is not disappointment but "they don't love me / I am no longer loved." This solidified script is "view of self + clinging to precepts" — treating a certain relational form as a sacred rule to be grasped.
Parenting scenario: You have a yardstick for "what a good child should be" — what test scores, what age for what skills, whether they fit in socially. When the child deviates from the yardstick, your anxiety is not the fact "they didn't do well" but the view "they are no longer the child I idealize."
Workplace scenario: "I must prove my worth," "if I miss this chance it will never come again," "the workplace is hierarchical," "past a certain age you're done" — every one of these is a concrete manifestation of view-delusion.
Almost all of the classical "ten bonds" can be found here:
- 我見 (satkāya-dṛṣṭi, view of self): the setting that takes oneself as some kind of essence; - 邊見 (antagrāha-dṛṣṭi, extreme views): either A or B, no middle ground; - 邪見 (mithyā-dṛṣṭi, wrong views): denying causality, denying impermanence, denying dependent origination; - 戒取 (śīla-vrata-parāmarśa, clinging to precepts): treating a certain form of life (persona, style, rules) as liberation itself; - 見取 (dṛṣṭi-parāmarśa, clinging to views): taking the view one currently holds as the supreme truth; - 慢 (māna, arrogance), 癡 (moha, delusion), 疑 (vicikitsā, doubt), 恚 (vyāpāda, hatred), 愛 (rāga, craving): the affective reactions that accompany view-delusion (these overlap with thought-delusion, but are especially intense in the state of view-delusion).
Where the walkthrough is easy to mis-map: view-delusion is not equal to "a particular thought one has thought up," but to "an entire worldview that has congealed into cognitive infrastructure." Changing one thought is not breaking a view; what you need to change is the unconsciously running operating system in the background.
B. A Contemporary Walkthrough of Thought-Delusions (Habitualized Affective Inertia)
The key word for thought-delusion is **habitual tendency (習氣, *vāsanā*)**. It is the accumulated state of the same type of affective reaction arising repeatedly over time, at varying depths — which is precisely why it needs eighty-one grades.
Phone-addiction scenario: You tell yourself "five more minutes," and half an hour has passed. This is not one instance of craving — it is the repeated arising of the same grade of craving — at its shallowest you can notice it; at its deepest, your entire body-mind is swept away, and even the awareness "I am craving" is gone. The difference among the eighty-one grades is roughly this: a ladder of depths from "I realize I want" to "I am drowned by wanting."
Overtime-work scenario: You hear about an unfair assignment, and a flame of insulted anger rises in your chest — then it rises again — then you tell yourself "forget it," and then it gets stirred up again — this is the same grade of aversion repeatedly manifesting, each time slightly deeper or shallower than the last. Nine grades are nine degrees of "self-protective hatred."
Intimate-relationship scenario: You see that your partner hasn't replied promptly — anxiety rises, anxiety dissolves, anxiety rises again, each time with a slightly different hue. This "repeated craving for response / repeated suspicion that they don't love me" is the two grades of craving and doubt in thought-delusion manifesting repeatedly.
Parenting scenario: You see your child didn't do well on an exam. The first time you frown, the second time you sigh, the third time you shout — this is arrogance + aversion manifesting at different grade-levels in the same situation: at the shallow grade you can still self-regulate; at the deep grade it breaks out of its shell.
Commuting scenario: You are stuck in traffic. In the first second you merely think "It's jammed"; by the tenth second you begin to resent the government; by the first minute you are already drafting a long indictment. This is the "grade" of thought-delusion moving toward greater depth.
Where the walkthrough is easy to mis-map: thought-delusion is not a single emotional event, but the same type of habitual tendency arising repeatedly. Thus, cultivating against thought-delusion is not a matter of "I didn't get angry today," but of seeing to what degree that same grade of aversion has been cut off across different situations and at different depths — this is the real meaning of the eighty-one grades.
C. A Contemporary Walkthrough of Views and Thought Working Together
The most damaging thing is views and thought feeding each other.
In your mind there is a "view": work performance = personal worth (view of self + extreme view). So every time you work overtime, every comparison, every performance review stirs up intense thought-delusions: craving (wanting better results), aversion (resentment when inferior to others), delusion (not seeing impermanence), arrogance (superiority when you happen to do well), doubt (suspicion that you really aren't good enough).
Then these thought-delusions reinforce that "view" — the more emotional reaction you have, the more you feel "yes, work performance *is* personal worth." Once this loop forms, it becomes what the *摩訶止觀* describes as "attached to the body and born, yet able to obstruct the body" (附體而生，還能障體) — views attach to the mind, thoughts attach to the body, and the two join forces so that you cannot simply work; you are constantly "fighting for worth."
Breaking this loop is not a question of cutting views first or thought first, but of illuminating both sides simultaneously. Zhiyi states this very clearly: in the contemplation of entering emptiness from the provisional, one first breaks the provisionality of views (erroneous cognitive frameworks), then breaks the provisionality of thought (habitualized affective structures); only when both layers are broken does the bondage of the three realms' segmental birth-and-death begin to loosen.
III. Why Contemporary People Need It
1. It Distinguishes "Suppressing" from "Breaking," Explaining Why Meditation Cannot Solve Everything
The *玄義* states explicitly: meditative concentration can only "suppress (伏) the suffering of views-and-thought" (temporarily), while the wisdom of birthlessness (生無生慧) can "break (破) the suffering of views-and-thought" (fundamentally pierce through). Corresponding to the contemporary context:
- You do 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation and your anxiety lightens — this is "suppressing"; - You see clearly the cognitive premises behind the anxiety (view of self, extreme views, clinging to precepts...), and you loosen that premise — this is "breaking"; - But if you think meditation alone can "break," you are merely spinning in place at the level of "suppressing."
When Zhiyi in the *摩訶止觀* distinguishes the methods of breaking delusion among the four teachings, the Tripiṭaka teaching breaks through contemplation of arising-and-ceasing, the emptiness gate breaks through the "three provisionalities as insubstantiality," and the *tōng* (通, common) teaching uses the contemplation of illusion to "realize that views-and-thought, being illusory, are themselves true" — that is, "breaking" does not mean annihilating views-and-thought, but illuminating that they are originally dependently originated, empty, and devoid of self-nature — illusory appearances. This is the true meaning of "breaking": not making it disappear, but making it unable to stand before your eyes any longer.
2. It Provides Two Senses of Time: "Cutting by Sections" and "Cutting by Grades"
View-delusions unfold as "ten bonds × four truths × desire and form realms," totaling sixty bonds; thought-delusions, as "three realms, nine grounds × nine grades," total eighty-one grades. This fine-grained division is not trivial — it tells us that breaking afflictions is a layered project, not a one-time event.
Corresponding to contemporary practice:
- Loosening at the cognitive level (view-delusion) often comes faster than loosening at the affective level (thought-delusion) — because view-delusion is structural and can be re-examined; thought-delusion is habitualized and requires repeated polishing; - But the depths of view-delusion (such as "view of self") often hide deeper than imagined — you can see the script in your intimate relationship, but the "I" that says "that's just how I am" may itself be the last thing to be illuminated; - The "grades" of thought-delusion manifest differently across situations — what you can tolerate from a stranger on the subway you cannot hold back with family; this same grade's manifestation among acquaintances, at work, and in intimate relationships is the same habitual tendency at different depths.
This is the real practical sense of the number "eighty-one grades": it tells us that practice is not accomplished in one stroke, but is a map layered by situation and depth.
3. It Explains Why "Hīnayāna Realization" Is Not the Destination
This is where contemporary practitioners most easily stumble: assuming that "enlightenment" or "attaining a fruit" is the endpoint.
The *玄義* states plainly: "斷見思，除滅分段……功德力薄，不求作佛，猶住草庵，非究竟理。" *"Cutting off views-and-thought and eliminating segmental birth-and-death... the power of merit is thin, and one does not seek Buddhahood, still dwelling in a grass hut — not the ultimate principle."*
"Segmental birth-and-death" — birth-and-death in segments within the desire, form, and formless realms — can be escaped by cutting views-and-thought. But there remains **"transformational birth-and-death" (變易生死, *vaikārya-janma-maraṇa*) — the subtle flux of a bodhisattva before Buddhahood, born-without-being-born, ceasing-without-ceasing — which is bound by the dust-and-sand delusions (obstructing Mahāyāna work of delivering sentient beings) and the ignorance-delusion** (the subtlest fundamental ignorance).
Corresponding to the contemporary context: Do you think that no longer being anxious, no longer clinging to intimate relationships, is the endpoint? Those states of mind — "unwilling to face the complexity of sentient beings again, unwilling to bear others' confusion again, unwilling to be drawn into the world's entanglements again" — are themselves traces of dust-and-sand and ignorance.
This is why Zhiyi says that practitioners of the Tripiṭaka and *tōng* teachings can "manifest the same illness of views-and-thought as the Two Vehicles": in the Mahāyāna bodhisattva's "illness practice" (病行), one deliberately manifests the illness of views-and-thought in order to benefit sentient beings — to have cut off views-and-thought and yet be able to re-enter views-and-thought without being defiled — this is the accomplishment of the Great Vehicle.
4. It Gives Contemporary People a "Liberation Roadmap That Can Be Operated Layer by Layer"
Placing the concept of views-and-thought within the entire path of liberation, its position is:
``` 見思惑 → 障三界分段生死 → 斷盡則出三界（阿羅漢位） ↓ 仍有塵沙惑 → 障大乘化導 ↓ 仍無明惑 → 障究竟佛果 ↓ 圓教妙覺 → 無明究竟盡，惑更不生 ```
*"View-and-thought delusions → obstruct the three realms' segmental birth-and-death → when completely cut off, one leaves the three realms (arhat stage) → still dust-and-sand delusions → obstruct Mahāyāna guidance → still ignorance-delusion → obstruct the ultimate Buddha-fruit → the wondrous enlightenment of the Perfect Teaching → ignorance is ultimately exhausted, delusion arises no more."*
This is a complete map from the first fruit to the ultimate Buddha. If the contemporary practitioner looks only at "I want enlightenment," one loses the sense of layers; if one sees this map, one understands:
- At this moment, am I breaking view-delusion or thought-delusion? - Am I "suppressing" or "breaking"? - Which grade am I spinning on repeatedly? - Have I mistaken "Hīnayāna-style no-longer-anxious" for the destination?
The answers to these questions do not come from the temporary pacification of emotions, but from a precise identification of one's own "operating system" — this is precisely the core gift that the concept of views-and-thought is meant to bring to contemporary people.
IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Misreading 1: Views-and-Thought = Perception Aggregate + Volition Aggregate
This is the most common confusion. Consider the differences among the relevant concepts:
- 想蘊 (saṃjñā, the perception aggregate): apprehending characteristics — matching the present object with past memories and identifying "this is a table, this is mother." It is a function present in all consciousness, and is itself undefiled. - 行蘊 (saṃskāra, the volition aggregate): volitional construction — the force of "driving, pushing, constructing" when the mind meets an object, including will, deliberation, and the construction of feeling. - 見惑 (view-delusion): a manifestation of the perception or volition aggregates under the dominance of erroneous views — e.g., the perception aggregate grasping the self as substantially real, the volition aggregate grasping "should be thus" as substantially real. - 思惑 (thought-delusion): the repeated construction of the volition aggregate under the dominance of craving, aversion, delusion, arrogance, and doubt.
The difference: the perception and volition aggregates are structures of consciousness; views-and-thought are pathologies of consciousness. The former are neutral tools; the latter are the solidified deviations that result when the tools are misused.
Misreading 2: Views-and-Thought = Thoughts + Emotions (Rough Correspondence)
This is the popular version of the above. It needs specific clarification:
- "Thoughts" is too broad: view-delusion is only that portion of thoughts that has solidified into cognitive architecture, not the everyday stream of passing ideas. Everyday thoughts are ignorance, scattering, habit — but they are not view-delusion itself. - "Emotions" is too narrow: thought-delusion is not just "the emotion of this present moment," but habitualized affective patterns — a state divided into eighty-one grades from shallowest to deepest.
A simile: if your afflictions are a river, "thoughts" are the water, "emotions" are the waves, and views-and-thought are the riverbed and the direction of the current — they determine how the water flows and how the waves rise.
Misreading 3: Breaking Views-and-Thought = Becoming a Buddha
This has been discussed above. One more sentence: even from the Mahāyāna perspective, "views-and-thought already cut off" is a great accomplishment, but if one's "power of merit is thin and one does not seek Buddhahood," it is still not ultimate. That is why Zhiyi says the wondrous enlightenment of the Perfect Teaching is "ignorance ultimately exhausted, delusion arising no more" — breaking views-and-thought only exits the segmental birth-and-death of the three realms; there remain the two layers of dust-and-sand and ignorance.
Misreading 4: Meditative Concentration Can Cut Off Views-and-Thought
The *玄義* states plainly: "禪定但能伏見思苦，不能破見思苦。" *"Meditative concentration can only suppress the suffering of views-and-thought; it cannot break the suffering of views-and-thought."* Suppressing is pressing down; breaking is illuminating the emptiness of its nature. The difference between the two is like:
- Suppressing: you press down hard on a spring; it stays still temporarily, but the moment you release your hand it bounces up — this is the function of meditative concentration; - Breaking: you see clearly that the spring is made of metal, that the force is dependently originated, and that there is no "self" doing the bouncing — this is the function of emptiness-wisdom.
Thus, merely sitting in meditation to calm the mind is not equivalent to cutting off views-and-thought; true breaking requires the illumination of emptiness-wisdom (the wisdom of birthlessness). This is why the Mahāyāna tradition emphasizes "the equal maintenance of concentration and wisdom" (定慧等持).
Misreading 5: Views Are Bad and Should All Be Destroyed
This point is the most easily misread. The *摩訶止觀* states plainly: "見是慧性，難忘，易發" — views originally have the nature of wisdom; it is only through attachment that they become delusion. If the practitioner can recognize their erroneous characteristics, then "養見研心，前驅開導" — nurturing views and refining the mind, they lead the way — views can be transformed into supportive conditions for the path.
Corresponding to the contemporary context: you should not equate "I hold a certain view" with "I have view-delusion." What truly needs to be broken is the attachment that solidifies a view into "this is just how I am" — not the view itself. A person who has deep views about justice, beauty, or compassion: such views aid the path. A person attached to "I must be right," attached to "others must follow my script": that attachment is view-delusion.
Thus, the Mahāyāna "breaking views" is not about becoming a person without views, but about returning views to their dependently originated, revisable, non-egocentric position.
Misreading 6: The Sharp and Dull Bonds Absolutely Correspond to Views and Thought
The *摩訶止觀* states explicitly: "利、鈍之名，通於見、思。" *"The names 'sharp' and 'dull' run through both views and thought."* The five sharp bonds (view of self, extreme views, wrong views, clinging to precepts, clinging to views) are usually assigned to view-delusion, and the five dull bonds (hatred, arrogance, delusion, craving, doubt) to thought-delusion — but Zhiyi says "the five dull are not without sharpness; how could the five sharp belong only to view-delusion." Sharpness and dullness are not fixed properties of the afflictions, but the current state at a given stage of practice. Before meditative concentration arises, views and thoughts are still weak, and all ten bonds belong to the dull; after concentration arises, the view-mind becomes vigorous, and all ten bonds belong to the sharp. Therefore one cannot simply say "sharp bonds are view-delusion, dull bonds are thought-delusion" — this is a simplification of the classification system, not an absolute truth.
Misreading 7: Cutting Off Views-and-Thought Is a Single Experience
The "thirty-four minds" sounds like a single sudden event, but the doctrinal classification of the *摩訶止觀* tells us that the paths of the Tripiṭaka, *tōng*, *bié* (別, distinct), and *yuán* (圓, perfect) teachings are completely different:
- Tripiṭaka teaching: sequential, contemplating the four truths in sixteen minds; only when the sixteenth mind is complete is view-delusion cut off; - ***Tōng* teaching: realizing that views-and-thought are originally unarisen — views-and-thought are empty in the present moment, no need for sequence; - *Bié* teaching: first suppressing the common views-and-thought, then breaking the common views-and-thought, then breaking the distinct delusions, in clear sequence; - *Yuán* teaching**: ignorance ultimately exhausted, delusion arising no more — this is the fruition of the Perfect Teaching.
Corresponding to the contemporary context: some may "suddenly see that views-and-thought are empty" (the superior faculty of the *tōng* teaching), some need "polishing grade by grade" (the nature of the Tripiṭaka teaching), some need "first suppress, then break, advancing layer by layer" (the nature of the *bié* teaching). There is no single "experience of cutting off views-and-thought" — this is the true wisdom the fourfold doctrinal classification gives us.
Concluding Remarks
The concept of 見思惑 is most easily reduced to the two characters "attachment" (執著). But its true content is far richer than "attachment": it is a fine-grained map of how human beings become trapped at the cognitive layer and the habitual layer, and equally a map of the practice path by which one walks out of that entrapment layer by layer.
When you understand view-delusion as "that cognitive architecture that has become your default premise," thought-delusion as "that affective habit that arises repeatedly across different situations," "suppressing" as "temporary repression," and "breaking" as "seeing clearly the emptiness of its nature," you can immediately apply this concept to the present moment —
The next time you are stuck in traffic, try not only deep breathing (that is suppressing), but look at the cognition "my time has been stolen" (that is view); not only swallowing your anger (that is suppressing), but watch how that repeatedly arising aversion manifests at different depths across different situations (that is the grade of thought).
Being able to walk through it this way, views-and-thought is no longer merely a term in the classics, but a real tool for contemporary self-knowledge and self-liberation. This is what Zhiyi of the Sui dynasty repeatedly said in the *玄義* and the *止觀*: "破見思、除滅分段" — what is broken is not life itself, but those "necessities" that bind life tight.
And after you have broken views-and-thought, remember the reminder of the *玄義*: that is still not the endpoint — there remain the two obstacles of dust-and-sand and ignorance, which require the dual advancement of "vow-power and wisdom." The path of liberation is complete; views-and-thought is only its first deep gate.