Reading guide
The refrain: two-way corruption
Each of the five perils closes with the identical formula: dhammasandosā vinayasandoso, vinayasandosā dhammasandoso — corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This two-way feedback loop is the discourse's real subject: doctrine and discipline degrading each other in either direction, not a single point of failure.
A chain of undeveloped teachers
The first two perils describe the identical mechanism twice: mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, or wisdom nonetheless ordain others (peril one) or take on students as mentors (peril two), and are unable to guide them in the higher ethics, mind, and wisdom. The text repeats the formula ‘they too will’ across three generations, making the compounding, self-perpetuating nature of the problem explicit rather than merely implied.
Falling into dark teachings unnoticed
The third peril names a specific activity — discussing abhidhamma and elaborations (vedalla) — as a site of risk, not because the activity is inherently wrong, but because it is where people can fall into wrong views ‘without realizing it’. This is the same term, vedalla, that appeared at AN 5.73 as one neutral genre among nine; here it recurs in a strikingly different, cautionary light.
Preferring poetry to the Buddha's own words
The fourth peril predicts that future mendicants will actively want to hear elaborate poetic compositions by outsiders or disciples, while having no interest in the Buddha's own deep, profound teachings dealing with emptiness (suññatā). Stated plainly, this predicts an audience-preference problem rather than a doctrinal error as such: people gravitating toward more pleasant, more accessible material, letting the harder teaching go unheard. This line is among the most frequently cited in later Buddhist commentary on the risks of textual transmission.
Senior mendicants setting a bad example
The fifth peril names senior mendicants themselves as the failure point: becoming indulgent, slack, leaders in backsliding, neglecting seclusion. The text names explicitly what follows — those who come after copy the example set before them (diṭṭhānugati), the same compounding, generational logic used throughout this discourse.
Read as prediction, not settled fact
This discourse is phrased throughout in the future tense, as prediction and warning rather than a claim about anything that has definitely already occurred. This reading guide does not editorialize about whether or how far the tradition considers this prediction to have come true; it reports what the discourse warns against, with the weight the text itself gives it.
Key terms
The text
The warning
§1“Mendicants, these five future perils have not currently arisen, but they will arise in the future. You should look out for them and try to give them up.
A chain of undeveloped teachers
§2What five? In a future time there will be mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. They will ordain others, but be unable to guide them in the higher ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will not develop their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will ordain others, but be unable to guide them in the higher ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will not develop their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. And that is how corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This is the first future peril that has not currently arisen, but will arise in the future …
§3Furthermore, in a future time there will be mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. They will give dependence to others, but be unable to guide them in the higher ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will not develop their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will give dependence to others, but be unable to guide them in the higher ethics, mind, and wisdom. They too will not develop their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. And that is how corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This is the second future peril that has not currently arisen, but will arise in the future …
Falling into dark teachings unnoticed
§4Furthermore, in a future time there will be mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. In discussion about the teachings and elaborations they’ll fall into dark ideas without realizing it. And that is how corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This is the third future peril that has not currently arisen, but will arise in the future …
Preferring poetry to the Buddha's own words
§5Furthermore, in a future time there will be mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. When discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited they won’t want to listen. They won’t actively listen or try to understand, nor will they think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing. But when discourses composed by poets—poetry, with fancy words and phrases, composed by outsiders or spoken by disciples—are being recited they will want to listen. They’ll actively listen and try to understand, and they’ll think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing. And that is how corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This is the fourth future peril that has not currently arisen, but will arise in the future …
Senior mendicants setting a bad example
§6Furthermore, in a future time there will be mendicants who have not developed their physical endurance, ethics, mind, and wisdom. The senior mendicants will be indulgent and slack, leaders in backsliding, neglecting seclusion, not rousing energy for attaining the unattained, achieving the unachieved, and realizing the unrealized. Those who come after them will follow their example. They too will become indulgent and slack, leaders in backsliding, neglecting seclusion, not rousing energy for attaining the unattained, achieving the unachieved, and realizing the unrealized. And that is how corrupt training comes from corrupt teachings, and corrupt teachings come from corrupt training. This is the fifth future peril that has not currently arisen, but will arise in the future …
The close
§7These are the five future perils that have not currently arisen, but will arise in the future. You should look out for them, and try to give them up.”
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