[Buddha-l] Website of the Arya Sanghata Sutra

[Dan Lusthaus]

Jayarava,

> The idea is that though spiritual practice cannot absolve us, it can make 
> us more tolerant of pain.

Frankly, I don't see that sort of hairshirt or callous-building 
recommendation at all in the sutta. Sounds too much like the chubby guy in 
The Name of the Rose. The contrast the sutta draws is that for one steeped 
in all sorts of bad habits and poor understandings, even a trivial bad deed 
will have dire consequences, while for one well-developed in a good way, 
will still have some bad consequences as a result of the same sort of 
trivial misdeed, but the results will be much more immediate, trivial 
themselves, and easily gone past and forgotten.

I thought my alchoholic analogy caught that dimension well.

The sutta is not encouraging growing callouses on one's vedana receptors, 
but practicing good habits. I think Woodward does a better job of 
translating this (Gradual Sayings I, p. 227f).

What sort of person goes to hell for a trivial act?

Idhapana bhikkhave ekacco puggalo abhāvitakāyo hoti abhāvitasīlo 
abhāvitacitto abhāvitapañño paritto appātumo appadukkhavihārī, evarūpassa 
bhikkhave puggalassa appamattakampi pāpaṃ kammaṃ kataṃ tame'naṃ nirayaṃ 
upaneti.

abhāvita = lack of habitual cultivation
of body, discipline, mind, and wisdom (kāya, sīla, citta. pañño)
... "his life is restricted and miserable" (appa-dukkha-vihārī).

The other fellow is the opposite of these (a careful cultivator of habits of 
body, etc., dwelling in unlimited manners (appamāṇa-vihārī).

Dan