Unwholesome☁️ dark quality View in explorer

When the monks led by Assaji and Punabbasuka refuse to stop eating at night, the Buddha asks if they take him to teach that whatever one feels must be wholesome. Felt comfort does not prove a practice wholesome and who should act with diligence.

The venerable Sāriputta delivers a comprehensive exposition on “Right View,” detailing sixteen ways a noble disciple achieves clarity in the Dhamma. By understanding the wholesome and unwholesome, nutriments, the Four Noble Truths, dependent origination, and the taints—including their arising and cessation—a disciple abandons underlying tendencies and realizes the cessation of suffering.

The Buddha explains how even small attachments can be strong fetters if not relinquished, using similes of a quail and an elephant, and contrasts between the poor and wealthy. He describes four types of practitioners based on their response to attachment and mindfulness. The discourse also presents gradual refinement of meditative attainments from the first jhāna to the cessation of perception and what is felt.

When his foster mother, Mahāpajāpati Gotamī, offers a robe to the Buddha, he encourages her to offer it to the Saṅgha instead. He then classifies offerings directed to individuals, contrasts them with those directed to the Saṅgha, and explains four kinds of offering purification.

A radiant deity tempts young Samiddhi to enjoy sensual pleasures. The Buddha later reveals that true liberation transcends identity and craving, and is only found by those who let go of even the need to describe themselves.

When the Kālāmas, perplexed by conflicting teachers, ask the Buddha how to know truth from falsehood, he advises against blind reliance on tradition or authority. Instead, offering a pragmatic test: reject what leads to detriment and cultivate that which leads to well-being.

The Buddha describes the four qualities that distinguish a person of integrity from one lacking in integrity.

The Buddha uses the simile of checking one’s reflection in a mirror to explain how to comprehend one’s own mind. He details how to constantly review mental states and apply urgent effort to abandon harmful qualities while developing wholesome ones.

What determines a complete spiritual path? When the wanderer Vacchagotta asks the Buddha to explain wholesome and unwholesome actions, he discovers the remarkable spiritual success spanning the Buddha's entire fourfold assembly.

In this discourse, the Buddha advises cultivating the qualities of patience, loving-kindness and compassion. For true character is revealed only when tested by disagreeable words and deeds. Using vivid similes culminating with the simile of the saw, the Buddha instructs to not give rise to a mind of hate, even if bandits were to seize and carve one up limb by limb.

The Buddha refutes the idea that merely refraining from bad deeds makes one a supreme ascetic, pointing out this would make infants enlightened. True awakening requires actively abandoning unwholesome states and cultivating the ten qualities of an adept.

Using the metaphor of a well-provisioned frontier fortress, the Buddha outlines the safeguards of the spiritual life. Equipped with seven good qualities and nourished by the four jhānas, a noble disciple’s mind becomes a fortress that cannot be overrun by Māra.

King Pasenadi asks Ānanda if the Buddha engages in conduct criticizable by the wise. Ānanda explains the Buddha has abandoned all unwholesome, afflictive conduct, possessing only wholesome, blameless conduct. Pleased, the king offers Ānanda a valuable Bāhitika cloth.

The Buddha critiques the Nigaṇṭhas’ belief that all suffering is determined by past deeds and erased by extreme asceticism. Instead, he explains how right effort applied to present causes of suffering leads to dispassion, detailing the gradual training that culminates in complete liberation.

The Buddha separates the unwholesome from the wholesome, with the five hindrances representing the unwholesome and the four establishments of mindfulness representing the wholesome.

Harmful, unwholesome qualities do not arise out of nowhere. The Buddha shows they always have a basis, and that by abandoning that very basis, they do not come to be.

What are the causes for the arising of kamma? The Buddha explains that greed, aversion, and delusion are the roots of unwholesome kamma, leading to painful results, and leading to further kamma. In contrast, non-greed, non-aversion, and non-delusion are the roots of wholesome kamma, leading to pleasant results and to the cessation of kamma.

The Buddha explains how to cultivate recollection of death so that it is of great fruit and great benefit, and leads to the deathless.

The Buddha reviews the multitude of harmful and unwholesome mental qualities he has abandoned, and the multitude of wholesome mental qualities he has developed to completion.

Using the analogy of a capable cowherd, the Buddha outlines eleven qualities for spiritual growth, including understanding, diligent inquiry, self-restraint, and loving-kindness. As a good herdsman tends his cattle, so a wise bhikkhu tends the mind, cultivating the care and discernment that lead to growth, fulfillment, and mastery in the Dhamma and Vinaya.

The Buddha compares spiritual teachers to cowherds crossing the Ganges. A foolish cowherd leads his herd to disaster by ignoring safe crossings, just as unskilled teachers lead followers to harm. In contrast, a wise cowherd safely guides his herd across, just as skilled teachers lead followers to welfare and happiness.

With superficial attention arises thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harm. By turning his mind toward the Triple Gem and his own virtue, the practitioner can discover the uplifting joy needed to make an end of suffering.

The Buddha explains the importance of developing a radiant mind, a mind of loving-kindness and the consequences of negligence, diligence, and laziness.

Refuting a claim that he teaches the annihilation of the world, the Buddha explains the four kinds of kamma to the brahmin Sikhāmoggallāna.

The Buddha explains to Mahāli that bad kamma is rooted in greed, hatred, delusion, superficial attention, and a wrongly directed mind. Good kamma stems from their opposites, including radical attention, which together distinguish unrighteous conduct from righteous conduct.

The Buddha outlines a progressive training guideline for the bhikkhus to undertake in order to be recognized as ascetics and brahmins. The Buddha also describes the abandonment of the five hindrances, the four |jhānas::::jah-naas|, and the three knowledges using similes.

The Buddha explains to the Sālā householders the causes for rebirth in states of loss or heavenly destinations. He details ten unwholesome and ten wholesome behaviors of body, speech, and mind. Ultimately, he reveals how pure ethical conduct empowers one to achieve any aspiration, from wealthy rebirths to supreme liberation.

The Buddha explains to the Verañja householders the causes for rebirth in states of loss or heavenly destinations. He details ten unwholesome and ten wholesome behaviors of body, speech, and mind. Ultimately, he reveals how pure ethical conduct empowers one to achieve any aspiration, from wealthy rebirths to supreme liberation.

A person who has not done good, has not done what is wholesome, has not protected others from fear, but has done evil, cruelty, and misdeeds, feels remorse.

The Buddha lists the three roots of the unwholesome - greed, aversion, and delusion, and explain their effect on the mind with a simile.

The Buddha explains how Devadatta, overcome by evil desires, bad friendship, and abandoning the training, arrived at a state of prolonged suffering. Though once esteemed, his envy led to ruin. The wise should associate with those whose path leads to the cessation of suffering.

How much practice makes one a true practitioner? The Buddha declares that even a “finger snap” of cultivation fulfills the Teacher's instruction. A rapid-fire survey of the path's essential practices, emphasizing that if a moment is worthy, frequent practice is beyond measure.

The Buddha describes three types of people - the blind, the one-eyed, and the two-eyed.

The venerable Nandaka teaches Sāḷha and his friend about how to independently verify the unwholesome and wholesome mental qualities.

The Buddha explains the three roots of the unwholesome and the three roots of the wholesome.

The Buddha describes the four right strivings concisely and precisely.

The four kinds of kamma in brief.

The Buddha explains four kinds of kamma: afflictive, non-afflictive, mixed, and the intention to abandon these deeds.

The Buddha explains four kinds of kamma: dark deeds (breaking precepts), bright deeds (keeping precepts), mixed deeds, and neither dark nor bright deeds. The fourth category uniquely leads to the wearing away of all deeds.

DhammaPada verses 76-89 share on associating with a wise person, characteristics of such a person, the importance of joy in the Dhamma, the benefits of renunciation, and the qualities of a well-cultivated mind.

Dhammapada verses 157-166 emphasize self-discipline, personal responsibility, and inner mastery. A wise person must first establish themselves properly before guiding others, as self-mastery is difficult but essential. Purity and impurity are personal matters, and one should prioritize their own spiritual welfare over external concerns, for no one can purify another.

Dhammapada verses 235-255 emphasize on the urgency of striving swiftly, not being negligent, discerning gradually, stains of various qualities. A contrast is drawn on the lives of one who is shameless and one with a sense of right and wrong, on finding the faults of others and one’s own, and on the path of the Tathāgatas.