dosa
Hatred, aversion
[ DOH-sa ]
Seeing it in life
Dosa is the opposite tone to lobha: pushing the object away. It manifests as resentment, hostility, cruelty, sorrow, fear.
In short
Anger, ill-will — second unwholesome root.
The analysis
Dosa is lobha's structural opposite — where greed pulls toward, dosa pushes away. It roots two of the twelve unwholesome cittas and shows up across a wide register: irritation, resentment, hostility, fear, grief, and self-directed harshness are all, in Abhidhamma terms, dosa wearing different clothes. The texts liken it to a snake that has been struck — reactive, defensive, ready to harm.
Where it sits
Dosa is the second unwholesome root, paired against adosa. Like lobha, it names at the mental-factor level what can also be described, in the context of vedanā, as the aversive lean away from unpleasant feeling — the pushing-away that follows dukkha-vedanā when the sensation isn't met as sensation.
The flash of irritation at a slow-loading page, gone in under a second but real while it lasted — dosa doesn't require a large object to arise, only an unpleasant one.
Commonly mistaken for
Anger specifically. Dosa is broader — impatience, self-criticism, and quiet resentment are dosa too, not only its loudest form.
Something to suppress. Suppression is itself effortful aversion aimed at the dosa; seeing it clearly tends to do more than pushing it away.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha II; Akkosa Sutta (SN 7.2).
Related terms