In Buddhism, a mental fetter, chain or bond (Pāli: samyojana, Sanskrit: संयोजना, romanized: saṃyojana) shackles a sentient being to saṃsāra, the cycle of lives with dukkha.
Throughout the Pali canon, the word "fetter" is used to describe an intrapsychic phenomenon that ties one to suffering.
1113-34) provides an alternate list of ten fetters, also found in the Khuddaka Nikaya's Culla Niddesa (Nd2 656, 1463) and in post-canonical commentaries.
Śīla refers to "moral conduct", vata (or bata) to "religious duty, observance, rite, practice, custom,"[25] and parāmāsa to "being attached to" or "a contagion" and has the connotation of "mishandling" the Dhamma.
[And thus] he understands the ear and sounds .... the organ of smell and odors .... the organ of taste and flavors .... the organ of touch and tactual objects .... [and] consciousness and mental objects ...." In MN 64, the "Greater Discourse to Mālunkyāputta," the Buddha states that the path to abandoning the five lower fetters (that is, the first five of the aforementioned "ten fetters") is through using jhana attainment and vipassana insights in tandem.
[31] In SN 35.54, "Abandoning the Fetters," the Buddha states that one abandons the fetters "when one knows and sees ... as impermanent" (Pali: anicca) the twelve sense bases (āyatana), the associated six sense-consciousness (viññaṇa), and the resultant contact (phassa) and sensations (vedanā).
Comparatively speaking, in the Theravada tradition, fetters span multiple lifetimes and are difficult to remove, while hindrances are transitory obstacles.