Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Abusing and insulting one's spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, leads without doubt to one of eleven disasters, from failing to progress in practice to rebirth in hell; refraining from such abuse avoids every one of them.
A genuinely eleven-item list
Unlike this chapter's first five discourses, which extend or repeat the Tens' own ten-link chain, this discourse's eleven disasters are native to this nipāta — a list this project has not met in this form before, marking a real shift in content rather than another variation on familiar material.
The eleven disasters themselves
The list runs from subtle failures of practice (not achieving the unachieved, what has been achieved falling away, good qualities left unrefined or overestimated, dissatisfaction in the spiritual life) through concrete harms (committing a corrupt offense, resigning the training, severe illness, madness) to the final and gravest outcome, rebirth in hell — a graduated sequence from spiritual to physical to karmic consequence.
Symmetry without a simile
Unlike the previous three discourses' shared tree simile, this discourse achieves its negative-positive symmetry through plain restatement alone: the same eleven items, first as disasters that follow from abuse, then as disasters avoided by its absence, with no supporting image required.
Key terms
The text
Eleven disasters, for abusing the noble ones
§1“Mendicants, any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, fall into one or other of these eleven disasters. What eleven? They don’t achieve the unachieved. What they have achieved falls away. They don’t refine their good qualities. Or they overestimate their good qualities. Or they lead the spiritual life dissatisfied. Or they commit a corrupt offense. Or they resign the training and return to a lesser life. Or they contract a severe illness. Or they go mad or lose their mind. They feel lost when they die. And when their body breaks up, after death, they are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. Any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, fall into one or other of these eleven disasters.
Eleven disasters, avoided
§2Any mendicant who does not abuse and insult their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, not fall into one or other of these eleven disasters. What eleven? They don’t achieve the unachieved. What they have achieved falls away. They don’t refine their good qualities. They overestimate their good qualities. Or they lead the spiritual life dissatisfied. Or they commit one of the corrupt offenses. Or they resign the training and return to a lesser life. Or they contract a severe illness. Or they go mad or lose their mind. They feel lost when they die. And when their body breaks up, after death, they are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. Any mendicant who does not abuse and insult their spiritual companions, denouncing the noble ones, will, without a doubt, not fall into one or other of these eleven disasters.”
Self-check quiz
6 questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.