Sources of Deeds

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Each of the ten unskillful acts is caused, in turn, by greed, hate, or delusion — and with the ending of greed, hate, and delusion, the sources of such deeds themselves come to an end.

A shift from listing acts to tracing origins

This chapter's earlier discourses (167–173) have repeatedly listed the ten unskillful acts as a fixed set; this discourse instead asks what produces them in the first place, applying the same threefold root — greed, hate, delusion — to each of the ten acts individually rather than treating the roots as a separate topic.

The three roots, a recurring foundation across this project

Greed, hate, and delusion (lobha, dosa, moha) are among the most fundamental and frequently recurring categories in this entire canon, already met repeatedly across earlier nipātas as the three unskillful roots underlying all unwholesome action; this discourse applies them with unusual precision, tracing all ten specific unskillful acts back to this same threefold source one at a time rather than treating the roots as a single undifferentiated cause.

An ending that names the roots' own cessation directly

Unlike most discourses in this nipāta, which describe cultivating the ten right factors as the path forward, this discourse's own closing line goes further upstream: not merely giving up the ten acts themselves, but ending greed, hate, and delusion at their source, after which “the sources of deeds are ended” entirely.

Key terms