moha
Delusion
[ MOH-ha ]
Seeing it in life
Moha obscures the true nature of phenomena, hiding their impermanence, suffering, and not-self. Present in every akusala citta.
In short
Mental blindness — the root of all unwholesomeness.
The analysis
Moha is the third and deepest unwholesome root — present in every unwholesome citta without exception, including those rooted primarily in lobha or dosa. Where lobha and dosa are directional (toward, away), moha is the obscuring that makes the wrong direction seem reasonable in the first place. It's functionally identical to avijjā, though the two terms travel with different lists.
Where it sits
Moha's opposite is amoha, which the texts identify with paññā (wisdom) itself — meaning the antidote to this root isn't a different root so much as clear seeing, cultivated. Moha is present even in relatively mild unwholesome moments; it's the background condition, not an occasional visitor.
Believing, mid-spiral, that thinking about the problem harder will produce the clarity that stopping would actually provide — that specific confusion about what helps is moha, doing its usual work of making the less useful option look load-bearing.
Commonly mistaken for
Being wrong about a fact. Moha is a mental factor, not a factual error; a well-informed person can still act from moha in a given moment.
Stupidity. The texts don't treat moha as a fixed trait — it's a condition present in unwholesome cittas across every kind of mind.
Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha II; Mūlapariyāya Sutta (MN 1).
Related terms