Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A life can fail in what it does, in what it wants, or in what it takes to be true.
Failure in ethics
Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and speech that is false, backbiting, harsh, or nonsensical. Seven items: three of body and four of speech.
This is the standard list of unwholesome courses of action minus the three mental ones, which the discourse holds back for the next category. The division is the point: what a person does is separated from what a person wants.
Notice that the seven are all things done to other people. Failure in ethics, on this account, is not a matter of personal impurity; every item on the list has a victim.
Failure in mind
Two words: covetous and malicious. Abhijjhālu byāpannacitta — the same pair AN 3.94 named as the two things given up after stream-entry, and the first two of the five hindrances.
The definition is much shorter than the other two, and the brevity is informative. Failure of mind is not a long list of mental faults; it is two, and they are the two directions a mind can move toward an object — wanting it and wishing it harm.
The third mental course of action, wrong view, has been split off and given its own category, which is what makes this discourse a set of three rather than a set of two.
Failure in view, and what the formula means
The formula is one of the most-repeated in the canon and it is worth going through clause by clause, because a modern reader will misread at least one of them.
There’s no meaning in giving, sacrifice, or offerings — that acts of generosity have no consequence. There’s no fruit or result of good and bad deeds — the denial of kamma. There’s no afterlife — the denial of rebirth.
There’s no such thing as mother and father is the clause that gets misread, and it does not mean that parents do not exist. It is shorthand for the view that there is no moral weight in how one treats them — that a deed done to a mother or father is not different in kind from any other deed. Read as a denial of parents’ existence it is absurd, which is a good sign that it is not what is meant.
Beings that are reborn spontaneously denies a class of rebirth; and the last clause — there’s no ascetic or brahmin who is rightly comported and has realized and declared this world and the next — denies that anybody has actually attained anything.
That last clause is the one that makes the formula a coherent position rather than a list. Everything before it could in principle be settled by testimony, and the last clause forecloses the testimony. Anyone holding the whole formula has ruled out the evidence that would tell against it, which is why the canon treats this particular view as difficult rather than merely wrong.
It is worth telling a class that the position described is a real one held by named contemporaries and set out at length in DN 2, not a straw figure. And it is worth being honest that a modern reader who accepts the first three clauses and rejects the last has a position the discourse does not address.
The positive half, and the middle term
The three accomplishments are the three failures negated: the seven courses of action avoided, the mind content and kind-hearted, and the view formula affirmed.
Anabhijjhālu abyāpannacitta — and Sujato’s content and kind-hearted is worth noticing as a translation choice. The Pāli is negative in form, not covetous and not malicious, and the English gives it positive content. Both readings are defensible and the difference matters for how the category feels: an absence of two faults, or the presence of two qualities.
The consequences given are the plainest possible: failure in any of the three can lead to a bad rebirth, accomplishment in any of the three to a good one. Three independent routes in each direction, and the discourse does not say that any of them is decisive by itself.
Key terms
The text
Three failures
§1“Mendicants, there are three failures. What three? Failure in ethics, mind, and view. And what is failure in ethics? It’s when someone kills living creatures, steals, commits sexual misconduct, and uses speech that’s false, backbiting, harsh, or nonsensical. This is called ‘failure in ethics’.
§2And what is failure in mind? It’s when someone is covetous and malicious. This is called ‘failure in mind’.
§3And what is failure in view? It’s when someone has wrong view, a distorted perspective, such as: ‘There’s no meaning in giving, sacrifice, or offerings. There’s no fruit or result of good and bad deeds. There’s no afterlife. There’s no such thing as mother and father, or beings that are reborn spontaneously. And there’s no ascetic or brahmin who is rightly comported and rightly practiced, and who describes the afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is called ‘failure in view’. Some sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell because of failure in ethics, mind, or view. These are the three failures.
Three accomplishments
§4There are three accomplishments. What three? Accomplishment in ethics, mind, and view.
§5And what is accomplishment in ethics? It’s when someone doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit sexual misconduct, or use speech that’s false, backbiting, harsh, or nonsensical. This is called accomplishment in ethics.
§6And what is accomplishment in mind? It’s when someone is content and kind-hearted. This is called accomplishment in mind.
§7And what is accomplishment in view? It’s when someone has right view, an undistorted perspective, such as: ‘There is meaning in giving, sacrifice, and offerings. There are fruits and results of good and bad deeds. There is an afterlife. There are such things as mother and father, and beings that are reborn spontaneously. And there are ascetics and brahmins who are rightly comported and rightly practiced, and who describe the afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is called accomplishment in view. Some sentient beings, when their body breaks up, after death, are reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm because of accomplishment in ethics, mind, or view. These are the three accomplishments.”
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