From Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship: The Sāmaññaphala Sutta and its Commentaries (Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy), pages 78 and 79.
CY. When people accept these theories and then recite and investigate them while sitting in their day-quarters or night-quarters, wrong mindfulness becomes established, taking as object (one of the three views): “No evil is done,” or “There is no cause or condition,” or “The dead are annihilated.” The mind becomes one-pointed. The impulsions run their course.²⁸ At the first impulsion these people are curable; and so too at the second, etc. But at the seventh they cannot be cured even by the Buddhas; they cannot be turned back.
Someone might espouse one view among these three, another two, another three. But whether one espouses one, two, or three views, one adopts a wrong view with fixed consequences. One has met an obstruction to the path to heaven and an obstruction to the path to liberation. It is impossible for him to reach heaven immediately following this present existence, much less to reach liberation. This being has become a stump in the round of existence, a watchman of the earth.²⁹ Generally, one like this does not emerge from existence.
Therefore a person with discernment
Desirous of his spiritual growth
Should keep far away from such harmful people
As one would avoid a venomous snake.SUB. CY. “Wrong mindfulness becomes established” (micchāsati santiṭṭhati): wrong mindfulness is the craving associated with the theory, and it is this which becomes established. For through oral tradition one first apprehends the general meaning of the view “by doing so there is no evil,” etc. One then ponders that meaning with various reasons until it appears as cogent to the mind as if it possessed concrete form. By becoming accustomed to such a view over a long period of time, one arrives at a reflective acquiescence in it, thinking “It is true.” When, again and again, one habitually indulges in and cultivates the view that has been accepted as true through reflective acquiescence, wrong thought directs craving to that view, with wrong effort reinforcing the craving; thus one apprehends things as having a nature which they do not really have. Thus it is the craving associated with the theory that is called wrong mindfulness.
“The mind becomes one-pointed”: by gaining such particular conditions as applied thought, etc., the mind becomes steadied on its object; it abandons diffuseness and becomes one-pointed, as if absorbed. “Wrong concentration” (micchā-samādhi) is spoken of under the heading of “mind.” For that concentration, gaining the power of the development through special conditions, performs the function of pervertedly concentrating the mind on its object, as in the case of sharpshooting archers, etc.
Notes
- The javana or impulsion phase in the Abhidhammic account of the process of consciousness is the phase at which the mind originates its kammically determinate actions. This phase, according to the Abhidhamma, consists of seven occasions of javana consciousness.
- The phrases “a stump in the round” (vaṭṭakhāṇu) and “watchman of the earth” (paṭhavigopaka) are probably intended to suggest that such a person remains stuck in saṃsāra, hindered by his wrong view even from finding the path to liberation.