More on 3 unwholesome roots: lobha, dosa, moha

Tejaniya, in his illustrated book, "don't look down on the defilements"
came up with a brilliant depiction of those 3 critters.
http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/
See the spanish PDF version of that book for the pictures, which are the
same as the printed english book. Inexplicably, the english PDF version
is all text, no pictures, leaving out the best and noteworthy part of
his book. .
He depicts the 3 roots as 3 blind mice, they're all wearing the special
sunglasses that blind people wear.
On the cover, first page of that (spanish) pdf file:
Lobha seems to be a more obese mouse, he's chewing gum and about to
prick the bubble with a pin.
Dosa is a tough angry looking mouse with a tatoo.
Moha is smoking a cigar, wearing a black jacket probably vainly thinking
he looks cool, sitting in a directors chair and watching his 2 buddies.

Early on reading english translations of pali suttas, one can't help but
notice how often these 3 words appear together in a group. Many years
ago on a different list, I remember Nina always referring to those words
in pali again and again, and I recognized them as a group but in my mind
I could never differentiate those 3 mice., exactly which one was which.
So that's why I had to concoct the little story to help me sort them out.

I'm still unclear on how synonymous raga and lobha are. Is lobha a more
general sense of greed, and raga has more of a tint towards lust? I'm
going to check Lennart's pali page first, because this seems to be
something he likely searched already, but I'm curious how often "lobha
dosa moha" appear together as a group in the canon versus other
occurences where synonyms such as raga or aviija may be substituted in.
Kind of like how in the 3 stooges comedy troupe, most of the episodes
seem to have Curly but some have Shemp instead. Interestingly the
official theme music for their show is the song, "3 blind mice." Lobha,
dosa, moha, the wholly trinity of stupidity.

-Frank

>> These are some mnemonics I came up with to help me to remember key words.
>>
>> lobha is like lobster, which has claws that greedily grasp and cling,
>> and it hurts when it clings.
>> dosa is like "masala dosa", a name of a spicy indian dish that makes
>> your blood boil and make you feel hot, similar to anger
>> moha is like being stranded in the>>mojave<< desert so long you become
>> confused, start hallucinating like a deluded and confused person
>> raga?
>>
>> when you're afflicted with 5 niivarana, you are far from nirvana (almost
>> an anagram)
>> worldlings want viagra , meditators prefer viiraga (anagram)
>> dukkha rhymes with sukha, but don't get confused by mixing sukha with
>> moha and raga so you end up losing sukkaa
>>
>> What mnemonics do you use?
>>